Still Kicking

Here is a post from Mish Weiss’s blog, written by her friend Marc:

Mish is not in a coma, she remains in critical condition.
She responds to touch and sound.
All we can do now is wait and pray.

You can probably guess how much I know about leukemia. I know a lot of leukemia patients die from hemorrhaging. They even get hemorrhages inside their eyes, causing temporary blindness. I don’t know how much doctors can do to control it. I’m hoping they have an effective way to put a stop to it.

Here’s part of a comment from her blog:

You know, G_d told Moses to raise his hands over the children of Israel (sorry I don’t recall all the details of why, but I think it was to bless them and keep them safe). Anyway, Moses obeyed G_d and had his hands raised, but he got so tired he could no longer keep them raise, so two friends, Aaron and I don’t know the other friends name, came along side him and held his arms up for him. (I think I need to study that again.) My point is, you are like Moses, a strong, brave Jewish person, but you are so tired that it is difficult for you to continue to carry on, so your friends, a big crowd of us, have come along side you to encourage you, and to help you carry on and to pray for you. That’s our job for right now. Your job is to just let us be your friends, to love you, to care for you, to pray for you. Mish you are a Moses.

I have had exactly the same thought. I believe many Old Testament stories were planned by God, to provide symbolism and foreshadowing. This story seems to be symbolic of the need for believers to stand together. A single person can’t pray 24 hours a day, and even if it were possible, people fail. So we are supposed to share our challenges and close the chinks in the armor.

I have a more positive outlook toward marriage these days, and the main reason is that Christianity is a tough burden for a single person to bear. When you feel weak or you go astray, you have no one to turn to except God. When you’re not praying, no one is praying for you. Two believers together can help each other stay on the path. It would have been a lot harder for me to leave the church almost 20 years ago, had I been married to a believer.

I value my autonomy, and women are often selfish, annoying, spoiled, and just unprofitable. Very often, a wife is a net negative, not unlike a tapeworm. But I have to believe that the same God who can bring peace to a torn-up family can make a marriage work.

I think the Internet can be a tremendous weapon, to help Christians join in purpose. Look at all the prayer requests that go up on this blog. Having a dozen or a hundred praying for you is certainly better than praying alone.

The same reader who posted the above comment said she had awakened in the middle of the night with Mish on her heart. That keeps happening to me, too, and it seems like it’s always at around 1:20 a.m. I hope it means something.

Let me mention another Aaron. My friend Aaron has just had a crisis. His wife had chest pains, and they put a stent in one of her arteries. It looks like she’s okay, but they have both decided they really need to change their diets and exercise regularly. I hope you’ll pray that her condition improves and that they’ll succeed in their efforts. Like I told Aaron, the Orthodox diet is not known for promoting health or longevity. They’ll have to get used to some real changes.

One More for the List

Today I have an opportunity to return a favor, to some extent. Reader Ed Bonderenka and his friends gave me invaluable help, praying for me when I needed it. Now Ed needs some help:

On another note. please hold me in prayer. I’ve been seeing a doctor for some lower G.I. issues with little results. Thank God x-rays and ultrasound came back good Friday. But I’m in pain. Thanks.

“Lower G.I. issues.” Yeah, I’ve used that euphemism, too, Ed. Here’s something that has worked for me: blame it on the dog.

Seriously, though, keep Ed in your prayers.

Best Shop Safety Device: a Macho Man Who Will Take Stupid Risks For You

I got a very weird email this week. A reporter from The New Republic wanted to interview me about Pajamas Media. The temptation was fairly potent. Think about it. The PJs reviled me in a forum to which no one pays attention. The interview would give me a chance to respond before a different and more respectable audience.

But I turned it down. Some of the mean things I have said about PJM still make me cackle helplessly, but like I said in my response to the reporter, picking on the PJs is a vice. It would be fun telling him what I thought about a group of college graduates thinking they could make money selling something which a) nobody wants, and b) is already available for nothing. And I could once again compare Simon and Reynolds to the Thunderdome characters “Master-Blaster.” But what little conscience I have would plague me.

I am trying to be a nicer person these days. Really.

I told the reporter he needed to talk to Moxie and Dennis, neither of whom is currently trying to be nicer. So clearly I’m not cured yet.

I think they will give him material that is way more entertaining than anything I would be willing to say.

In other news, I have had a problem which will amuse all of you. I joke all the time about being addicted to tools, but over the last couple of weeks, I have been seriously concerned. I would get up, write a blog post, shop for machine tools, work with tools, do my regular daily stuff, write another blog post, and shop for machine tools again.

It interfered with my early morning prayer time. It distracted me from more important things. So I have been trying to get a handle on it. I’m shutting the PC down earlier now. Hopefully I won’t need an intervention.

I am part of the group of Christians who think that anything that is too important to you is equivalent to an idol. An idol doesn’t have to be an object carved in the shape of a God. It can be a job, a car, a woman…you can even be your own idol. And if you miss your daily Bible study because you’re busy Ebaying tools you will never buy, you are over the line.

I feel a whole lot better now that I’m getting back on track. I missed God.

I’m not totally free; let’s be serious. A neighbor has two juicy mahogany logs in his or her trash, and I plan to make a rescue mission later today. But I think my priorities are a little more balanced.

This trash-wood business has me interested in woodturning. That means buying a wood lathe, right? Not really. You can turn wood on a metal lathe, if you rig it up so wood won’t get into the machinery. Lots of people do it. I would be limited to about a 12″ swing, but I don’t plan to turn manhole covers, so I don’t care. I don’t know what a reasonable swing for a wood lathe is. Lots of people like the Jet 1220VS, which has a 12″ swing.

I used to think turning was sort of silly. You plop a chunk of wood on the lathe, you spin it, a bowl comes off, and you put it on Ebay, where it brings 79¢ (because your mom feels sorry for you and bids on it under a friend’s account). Ho hum. But some people do very creative work, and you can turn wood that is worthless for other purposes. I’ve seen at least one beautiful item made from poinciana wood. Which is not rare in Miami trash piles.

I have learned that there is such a thing as a bandsaw blade made especially for cutting green wood. I suppose I need one. My 3/4″ blade is pretty gummed up right now.

Today I had an idea for an invention. It’s not really useful, but I still think it would be great to make it. I’ll explain.

Lifting things is bad. It’s stupid. You can ruin your back lifting something as small as a typewriter (remember those?). But we have no answer to the lifting problem. We have those stupid belts they wear at Home Depot, but research suggests they don’t actually work. What’s the answer?

Clearly, we need mini-forklifts. We have big forklifts for huge things, and we have somewhat smaller lifting devices for things that are still pretty big, but what if you want to lift something that weighs 50 pounds? Go pack sand. Nobody in industry takes you seriously. But it’s a very legitimate need. I have a dry cut saw that weighs maybe 65 pounds. I have a planer that weighs nearly a hundred. I don’t want to lift these things from the garage floor to a shelf, over and over. They’re small, but they’re definitely big enough to be risky to lift. I’ve been lifting wet mahogany logs to the bandsaw table because I had no choice, and one of them probably weighed a hundred pounds. It’s a bad habit to get into.

If you go to sites like Northern Tool, you’ll see there are things called Genies which are small-footprint, hand-powered lifts. They lift up to 500 pounds. Swell. But they cost $500, and they take up an area about two feet by twenty inches. For a guy with a few tools and other items that need to be moved around in a garage, this would be overkill. You would have to have a fairly big garage in order to have room to use this thing, and would you really want to use it for something like a miter saw? It’s too inconvenient. You’d grab the saw and take your chances.

I think it would be neat to make a lift with a 250-pound capacity that would lift things five feet off the ground. You could have forks 12″ apart, and you could make them 18″ long. If you need more area, slap a piece of plywood on it, with bolts that go through the forks. No, forget bolts. Use pins that pop in and out. It would take up about as much room as a handtruck, and it would be so light you would actually use it. You wouldn’t even need decent steel. You could weld it up using galvanized fence posts.

A lot of men are ashamed to ask for help lifting things. They are utter morons. Those are the guys who end up moaning about how they can’t leave the couch. The last time I had to lift one of the props from my dad’s boat, I told another guy to take one end. He was a steroid-enhanced bodybuilder who was not overly burdened with genius. He was clearly contemptuous as he grabbed the 80-pound, awkwardly-balanced prop and carried it by himself. Me? I was delighted. I can carry an 80-pound prop. But I’m smart enough not to. When I’m 70 and he’s 55, I’ll be able to kick his ass. He’ll be a cripple.

There is nothing macho about ruptured disks or having to ask your wife to carry your laptop case. Life is not a weightlifting competition, and lifting stuff does not impress people. No one cares about your mighty feats of strength. Women do not find them sexy, and men do not find them intimidating. Sorry to break the news.

It would be even more fun if I could put a motor on the lift, to shoot things up and down and make a crank unnecessary. That would be the difference between a usable lift and a dust collector. You shouldn’t need a whole lot of torque, so it should be possible to make the lift work pretty fast. Maybe a motorcycle gel battery would work.

Maybe I’ll try to make something once my other projects are not so backed up.

Speak Up

I am investigating a ministry that provides assistance to needy Jews. I was wondering if anyone who reads this site was aware of it. It’s called Jewish Voice Ministries.

I’ve written a lot about the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. This is a wonderful organization that moves Jews to Israel, helps poor Jews, and fights anti-Semitism in the media. But that organization has one weak point. They are completely opposed to evangelism. They work with Christian minister John Hagee, who has come to the controversial conclusion that Jews are under a different salvation scheme, and that there is no reason to mention Jesus to them.

Jewish Voice is somewhat different. It’s run by messianic Jews. They evangelize, and they do it from a Jewish standpoint, which is a little unusual. And they move Jews to Israel, much as the IFCJ does, so you can donate money for pretty much the same purposes.

I talk to my sister about charities and ministries. She pointed this one out to me. She likes it better than the IFCJ, for the reasons mentioned above.

I checked it out with Charity Navigator, and their rating is slightly higher than the IFCJ’s, so it’s a reputable organization. And the leader takes a reasonable salary.

If you’ve heard of Jewish Voice, let me know.

More

I may have spoken too soon. I’m looking at their site, trying to find information about moving Jews to Israel, and it doesn’t seem to be there.

ATTACK!

Mish Weiss is on the prayer list again. She has a cold. This is not something you want, when you have leukemia. Please don’t forget her.

Okay, but We Also Ordered “Hope”

Can you believe the Dow is dropping AGAIN?

We might as well start using the “D” word. “Depression.” It looks very likely, and unlike the first Depression, it will probably end with an overall level of prosperity that is permanently reduced.

Congratulations, Obama voters. Thanks to you, we have spent everyone’s grandchildren’s college tuition, and we are getting nothing in return except exacerbated economic injury. This is what happens when you elect a wet-behind-the-ears Chicago-machine bagman instead of a leader. And just to make you happy, I’ll admit that McCain would not have been appreciably better. We needed a conservative, but there were no conservatives on the menu. I hate to say this, but because the economic mess is so important, we might have been better off electing the lunatic Ron Paul. Sure, he would have caused horrible problems. But he would not have put our overgrown government on steroids, nationalized banks, and put the Big Three on methadone.

I still blame the left, because were it not for their growing numbers and the pressure they apply to the political parties, the GOP might have had enough of a spine to run a conservative.

The things that are happening in the market right now do not reflect the wrongness of trickle-down economics implemented under George Bush. They reflect the investing public’s knowledge that Obama’s socialist approach to ending the recession will make it worse. This is why people are selling stock, and selling is what makes the Dow drop. No one with any common sense believes we can fix this mess by rewarding the institutions and individuals that caused it, yet that is exactly what Obama is doing, and even Bush got into the act at the end of his term. If you want to criticize Bush, don’t yammer about his supply-side ideas, which were very sound. Complain that he gave in last fall and decided to give leftist economics a try. And complain that he wasn’t man enough to rein in and regulate the GSEs that espoused leftist policies which caused the housing bubble.

I don’t know if people understand the magnitude of this catastrophe. The Dow peaked at above 14,000. That wasn’t all that long ago. Now we’re headed for 7,000, after months of frantic, pants-wetting government first aid (consisting mainly of tourniquets applied to the neck). This didn’t happen after the 1987 crash or the tech meltdown. This is much more like the post-1929 era. At a similar point after the 1987 crash, the market was much healthier than it is today, on a percentage basis. In fact, the same is true of the 1929 crash.

We’re printing money to ward off deflation, and we have to pay interest on that money, because we issue bonds to justify the printing. Will that stop deflation, when people no longer have jobs and can’t afford to spend? Won’t sellers drop their prices in order to get money to stay in business? I don’t know. Here’s another question: will that money end up in circulation? Sooner or later, won’t foreign governments get wise and stop buying bonds? I don’t know enough about the Fed to say, but it sounds like printed money only ends up in circulation if we can find someone stupid enough to lend to us. If that’s true, maybe deflation is unpreventable.

China is hard to understand. On the one hand, they want us to do well enough to buy their products, so they need to buy our bonds. On the other, they want to keep increasing their output, which means crushing American industry and wrecking our economy. Maybe they’ll eventually realize we’re not going to recover, and they’ll decide making products and marketing them to the rest of the world is smarter than keeping us on life support. What they’re doing is a little like giving your son an allowance so he can support your family by buying products you make in the garage. It seems inherently inefficient and lossy.

Who would have thought that a community organizer with virtually no experience wouldn’t be able to solve all the world’s problems? Gee, electing him seemed like such a great idea. Socialism worked so well in North Vietnam and Cuba.

I guess I should quit poking the left. They’re the symptom, not the disease. The disease is turning away from God and slicing up the Promised Land in exchange for promises from murderers and liars. I suppose that if conservatives were in charge, the curse we have brought on ourselves would still bring us down. Leftism is inherently evil and ungodly, because it presumes that man can usher in the Messianic Age without God’s help. It’s just as idolatrous as the Tower of Babel. But godless conservatism is equally vain.

I’ll bet that nine months from now, I’m a hundred miles north of here, planting things on a big lot and driving a truck instead of a Thunderbird. In times like these, things with intrinsic value become precious, and small homes in big cities don’t fit that description.

Rebels are we…Born to be Free…

I am more pessimistic than ever about Obamanomics.

I just saw Jared Bernstein on CNBC. He’s Biden’s economic wonder boy. There were four pundits interviewing him about the stimulus package.

Just for background purposes, Paul Krugman endorses Bernstein, and Bernstein writes for The Daily Kos. Or did before he was appointed. This should tell you all you need to know about his leanings.

It was horrible to watch. The pundits kept asking him why we should take money away from responsible people and give it to people who took on debt they could not handle. And he refused to answer. He smiled, and he kept saying, “That’s a great question,” but he weaseled and sidestepped and refused to answer. This wasn’t Fox, mind you. This was CNBC, home of openly belligerent liberals like Erin Burnett and Mark Haines. But this panel was hostile.

He said the handouts would not go to “speculators.” Okay, first of all, many professional speculators are productive people. They may have screwed up in the housing boom, but many of them are excellent businessmen, and I would rather see them get the money than give it to hopeless perennial deadbeats. Second, as the hosts fairly screeched at Bernstein, an impoverished individual who signs a note with an adjustable rate IS a speculator. He’s just not a sophisticated and rational speculator who has a chance of succeeding. He’s speculating that he’ll have enough income to pay the note, and that the interest rate will remain low. And the basis for his speculation? HOPE that his basic nature will CHANGE. Suddenly he’ll become capable of handling money, in spite of a lifetime of poverty.

Bernstein kept saying, “through no fault of their own.” But as the hosts pointed out, when you sign a note you can’t pay, it’s definitely your fault.

Rick Santelli, who may well become a cult figure, asked how subprime-borrower losses differed from stock losses. Why shouldn’t stock losses be covered? Millions of responsible people put their retirement money in carefully chosen stocks, and now it’s gone. And come to think about it, it’s gone because of the irresponsibility of the people Bernstein wants to continue subsidizing. With money taken from the responsible, who are already eating major investment losses!

The injustice is mind-boggling.

Bernstein whined about foreclosures. Look, if the banks don’t want to foreclose, they don’t have to. They can write off principal and eat big losses. They can lower interest rates. They don’t have to adjust rates based on the prime rate. They can go as low as they want, voluntarily. The banks took this risk. Responsible people didn’t. Why shouldn’t the banks take the hit? After all, they made the bad loans, and they made the voluntary choice to raise interest rates above a sustainable level for their subprime borrowers.

And if we have foreclosures, so what? Sure, people who had no business buying homes will lose their houses. What will happen then? Responsible people–the class of people who sold them the homes to begin with–will snap up the homes. They’ll rent them to the subprimers, and life will go on as it was before the boom, when all of these people were renting, anyway.

Here’s a nasty little secret nobody wants to discuss. As a class, these people are going to lose their homes regardless of whether we help them. No one wants to talk about that. The reason? They’re not the kind of people who can hold onto wealth. If they were, they wouldn’t have needed subprime loans. Sure, there are exceptions, but the fact is, people who can’t qualify for loans are rejected for good reason. They fail to make the payments. Save them this year, and they’ll be in default two years from now. Why is no one talking about this? Many, many of these loans are going to fail regardless of what we do. They would have failed even if the economy hadn’t tanked. Sooner or later.

Even if we gave them the homes outright, many of them would mortgage them, blow the money, and end up on the street. You cannot make people prosperous. It is impossible. All you can do is provide opportunity. History proves that when you give poor people enough money to live well, without requiring them to be responsible, you do not get affluent people. You get more poor people.

I’ll tell you what I always say about “the rich,” and by that, I mean people who do reasonably well. Democrats call them rich; so will I. If you took everyone’s money and possessions away and started over from nothing, and you let people scratch their way into the best economic positions they could manage, in six months, the people who were rich before would be rich again, and the poor would still be poor.

Come to Miami, if you don’t believe me. This town is full of rich Cubans who were rich in Cuba, then poor in Miami, and then rich again in Miami. It’s also full of Cubans who were poor in Cuba and have gotten rich here, but that’s because the US has a better economy and is considerably less corrupt.

Fidel and his minions enjoyed cutting the Cuban rich down to size. But a lot of the people the communists stole from came to the US and had the last laugh.

Bernstein and Obama want equality of outcome, regardless of how we get there. That’s a mirage. You can’t reach it. It’s the wax carrot of socialism. The carrot is phony. The stick is all too real.

The Democrats are going to get their way. I think a lot of people who used to see themselves as liberal now realize they’re more conservative than they thought; many people are furious about what’s happening. But Obama will win. We are in deep, deep trouble. It has to be the hand of God. We are not this stupid. We didn’t walk into this obvious trap; we charged. Like we were getting free admission to Disneyland.

It’s Cuba all over again, and this is 1958.

She Crieth in the Chief Place of Concourse

I couldn’t get this to load on CNBC’s site, and it occurred to me that I may not be alone.

Here is Rick Santelli, calling for a revolt against Obama’s mindless, destructive socialism:

Bigger quotation:

10 My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

13 We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

14 Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

15 My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

16 For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

17 Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

18 And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

20 Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,

22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

That’s from Proverbs, chapter 1. Gives me chills.

Jump In

Reader Paula sent this in an email. It appears on a site called Caringbridge.com:

I have been diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma. The cancer started in my right hip and leg area and the tumor is quite large. Scans have shown that the cancer has already spread to my lungs. My first cycle of chemotherapy January 15 and the second cycle is to begin on January 29.

Paula says this is from a lady named Chrissy. She is 27 and married. She has kids aged 5, 6, and 7.

In other news, Mish Weiss wants to give up her fight against leukemia. Her doctor is very upset, and he put a message on her blog. He has gotten her to agree to 21 more days of treatment, using new drugs.

I hope you’ll join me in praying that she will be healed, and that she will do what it takes to please and serve God. I’m not suggesting there is something wrong with her behavior. Whenever I pray for someone to receive something, I also pray that they will turn to God and make a change. I do that because blessings are connected to obedience and faith, not because I am judgmental. Spare me the angry comments.

Surprise, Surprise

Imagine you are an evil spirit, and you want to destroy a wealthy, powerful nation that, on balance, serves God. What would be a good way to do it?

First you might come between the old and the young, introducing musical genres and dance styles and other cultural changes that act as barriers. You might even manage to create an extremely bizarre and unnatural situation in which the old and young separate to socialize. No healthy civilization has ever had a sick, twisted segregation of the generations. It’s a great way to bring nations down. It’s like girdling a tree. You disconnect the leaves from the roots, and the leaves die.

The separation would prevent the young from being around the old enough to absorb their time-tested wisdom, so when you filled the heads of the young with destructive garbage, there would be no responsible voice to balance it. You could make the young believe really stupid things. “Pride is good.” “Aggression is a virtue.” “All types of sexual behavior are healthy and natural.” “Abstinence is sick and impossible.” “Money solves life’s hard problems.” “Man created God because man is weak and cowardly.” Wisdom is strength. Take it away, and you get weakness.

To help you brainwash the young, you could destroy the educational system. You could corrupt it to the point where most teens had a hard time succeeding at simple tasks like finding major countries on a map or naming fundamental principles and rules expressed in the Constitution. They’d be so ignorant, they’d believe any ridiculous claim, including the claim that socialism–which has been utterly discredited by history–works.

You could misuse the Constitution to remove Christianity from schools, and eventually, you would be able to use the schools to attack Christianity openly. Once you manage to get courts to say that acknowledging Christianity amounts to establishing a religion, you end up with a helpful logical conclusion: saying positive things about Christianity in state-run schools is unconstitutional, but preaching the nonexistence of God is not.

When the country’s standard of living began to decline as a result of sin and rebellion, you could mask it by pretending to fight for women’s rights. You could convince women that raising children is a trivial job fit only for ignorant, unskilled immigrants, and that no woman who has no outside-the-home career should have any self-respect. Then women would go out into the workplace, and families would have more income. By objective standards like home ownership, they would be worse off than their parents, and they would work more, and each breadwinning pair might earn less real wealth than a typical male wage earner in an earlier generation, but things would look good on the surface.

You could convince people that loading up on credit, which has been considered stupid for centuries, was a good thing. Their neighbors would have fancy cars and houses, in which they actually had little or no true ownership interest, and people would get jealous and join the flock of debtors. The borrowing would enable people to have better possessions, and they would seem and feel richer than they actually were.

It would be helpful if the value of the currency could be manipulated, so you might take the country off the gold standard. Then inflation would be considered normal, and people would earn salaries that seemed high because they contained a lot of zeroes. And they’d feel pretty good about that.

Then you could convince people that Israel and the Jews caused a lot of the world’s problems by holding onto land captured in war. Never mind the fact that territory has traditionally been acquired in this manner. Forget the fact that the wars in question were defensive wars, and don’t mention the size of Israel, and the need for buffer areas around it. Israel’s enemies have proven that they don’t keep promises, and that land doesn’t satisfy them, and that their real goal is the destruction of the Jewish state. Try to keep the press from acknowledging these things.

Eventually, you’d end up with a nation that supports Muslim land grabs, in opposition to God’s promise to Abraham, which, as your state-paid teachers say, is just a fable. And once a land opposes Israel, its fortunes will fall.

When it’s all over, you have an economically depressed land full of atheism and other forms of idolatry, which opposes Israel, embraces just about every type of sin, has fractured families, and has no clue about the value of ancient wisdom. The people have debt. They have no savings. They are losing their jobs. They don’t know how to pray or repent. God has no plans to help them; in fact, he now helps their enemies. He looks elsewhere for champions, because unlike George Bush and Barack Obama, God does not promote and assist failures at the expense of the responsible.

Job well done.

This blog post expresses an idea that has been rolling around in my head for a while. And time seems to be bearing it out. Maybe it’s just something I thought up on my own, out of neurosis and pessimism. Or maybe someone merciful and generous and patient whispered it in my ear, to help me and my family survive, and to equip me to inform others. Maybe that same someone is whispering it into hundreds of millions of ears all over the planet.

We’re Going to Miss the Frying Pan

Looks like the Dow is poised to open way down. Another victory for Obamanomics.

This is shocking. You can hear the fear in the voices of the hosts on CNBC.

Sometimes being right is not pleasant at all.

Now pundits are talking about inflation. Where do you go in an economy in which stocks are dead, your wages are depressed or gone, and your savings are under attack from inflation?

Frankly, I hope the anti-deflation measures bomb. At least, I hope they fail badly enough to protect responsible people who saved money and didn’t get caught up in the sleazy, ill-fated housing orgy.

My clever and sophisticated survival plan is to trust God. I think this recession is his punishment for slicing up Israel and turning away from him, and if he can punish a nation, he can protect people within that nation.

The Bible says, “The Lord knoweth the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine, they shall be satisfied.”

Hold on tight.

Be Glad When Someone Puts the Smite to You

Let me pose a question to my Christian readers.

Suppose you communicate from time to time with another Christian. And you and this person agree that donating to the church and to charities is very important. But this person has a habit of telling you exactly how much he gives.

Imagine also that this person has represented himself as financially comfortable, and has expressed a belief that the money was a reward from God. Then this person admits having financial problems.

It worries you that this person tells you the amounts of the donations, because you believe a Christian’s generosity will be rewarded in one way or another, and that disclosing the amounts of one’s giving will cut off or reduce whatever blessings may come of it. After all, Jesus said not to let one hand know what the other was doing. You worry that this is the reason the person needs money.

Finally, out of concern, you tell the other person you are concerned about learning these amounts, for the above reasons. And this person tells you that you are impossible to communicate with because you are judgmental.

Is what you’ve done okay, or is the other person right?

I think the other person is completely wrong. After all, both testaments of the Bible are full of examples of believers giving each other advice. We’re expected to do it. Most people wouldn’t even know what the word “rebuke” means, were it not for the Bible. Everyone makes mistakes, and we need other believers to warn us, for the same reason you’d warn someone who was walking toward a minefield. Psalm 141 says, “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness. And let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head.”

I’m sure I have the punctuation wrong. The KJV has very weird punctuation.

I think it’s fine–not just acceptable, but important–to talk about the importance of giving, because you don’t talk about it in order to glorify yourself. You do it to help other Christians realize there is a blessing they may be missing out on, and you talk about it for the sake of the church, and for the sake of the needy. And it’s fine to mention organizations that deserve donations. How else are people supposed to find them? That’s why I have charity links on my site. And if you read this blog regularly, you know that I don’t just recommend charities. I also ask for recommendations.

I also think it’s fine to say you feel you’ve been rewarded for giving. That’s called “testimony.” It’s helpful to others.

At the same time, I think you harm yourself when you talk about how much you give, or what an empathetic or generous person you are.

I’ve gotten all sorts of great advice from other Christians. I take it very well unless it’s offered in a snotty way. Sometimes I manage to take it well even then, but I’m not nearly saintly enough to do that consistently.

Sometimes people are clearly self-righteous when they tell you about an error you’re making, or something you missed out on. But most of the time, they’re trying to help.

I think it’s important not to get mad when someone throws a fit over advice you’ve given them. Anger and division are just what the enemy wants, and they waste time, make you miserable, and interfere with God’s ability to grant the things you ask in prayer. Sometimes people get really mad when you give them advice, and then a week later, they’re taking the advice and either thanking you for it or pretending they thought of it themselves. Either way, it’s a positive result, and it’s less likely to happen if you start whacking each other with your giant leather-bound designer Bibles.

If I were to break character and give to charity or the church I would tell NOBODY but the IRS, and I would even be tempted to keep it off my tax returns. Not because I’m a wonderful person (although I am) but because I would like to get some sort of worthwhile reward. Let’s be honest; unless you’re a complete martyr, a lot of what you do as a matter of faith has a big element of self-interest. That’s perfectly reasonable. You won’t find Biblical figures saying things like, “O Lord, increase my leprosy, give my enemies victory, make me fight with my family, and keep me in poverty.” And God wouldn’t have given us tons of promises regarding rewards, had he not expected us to try to get the benefit. God always says, “Do this and get a reward, or do that and suffer.”

Hello? I didn’t make the rules. God isn’t a socialist. He realizes that even good people act out of self-interest.

I don’t agree with prosperity preaching. It’s wrong to tell people God has a magical machine in the sky that automatically turns every ten-dollar donation into a hundred-dollar return. But I do believe giving to God and the poor is crucial to a blessed life. We’re supposed to be like God in our character, and God is generous. I think it is literally impossible for a person or a family to have peace and prosperity and harmony without being generous. Sooner or later, you will find corruption in whatever good things you receive. You’ll make good money, but you’ll get a divorce and your kids will end up on drugs. You’ll get a nice business going, but you’ll be too sick to run it, or a lawsuit will destroy it. Something like that.

I also think God probably respects every donation made in the right spirit, but he may reward you with something other than money, because sometimes money is not what you should have. Maybe you can’t hold onto it. Maybe it will lead you to do stupid things with it and end up like one of the many wealthy celebrities who died by thirty. Not everyone can be counted on to do the mature thing and buy expensive machine tools.

Anyway, there is nothing wrong with pointing out dangers other people may be courting with their behavior. The Bible actually says that if we don’t correct people, we share responsibility for their sins. The people who can’t stop parroting “judge not, et cetera” need to learn that there is more than one verse in the Bible. And I can tell you this: if people had not pointed my own sins out to me on occasion, I would be in a real mess right now.

Did I Just Feel a Sprinkle?

Am I the only person who has noticed these two inconsistent facts? 1. Since taking office, Barack Obama has consistently made stupid and obvious mistakes with regard to both major and minor issues, and one thing he has done may turn out to have catastrophic results. 2. Obama worshipers are more convinced than ever that he is The One.

Odd.

I thought I would expand a little on yesterday’s post about the real estate deal. Without bogging down in details, it goes like this. I inherited an interest in a little piece of commercial property. Some relatives with shares in the land need money; some don’t. Some really like to sell property; some don’t. There have always been conflicts regarding the disposition of pieces of property we own in common. There has never been any possibility that we would keep all the land and manage it and profit from it; it’s not even worth discussing. It would clearly be the intelligent thing to do, but you can’t herd cats.

When talk of selling this piece started, I was disturbed. It generates a little income. It’s in a great location. It’s in a place where flat land is rare and valuable, so it’ s not like there are a lot of properties like it. And I was concerned about the motivations and judgment of family members who wanted to get rid of it.

Nonetheless, I think the US is headed for a depression or deep recession, followed by a permanently lowered standard of living. We have never had the problems we face today. We have never had hungry, capable competitors like China and India, with their own vast internal markets and an endless supply of cheap, well-educated, grateful, eager labor. There is no reason why we should continue to lead the world economically. And we have aborted millions of babies, and we are getting into all sorts of disgusting religions, and we are proud and downright gross, and we are helping cut up Israel, so unless the Bible is nonsense, we should expect serious economic problems.

So while I like the idea of holding onto good land, I think unemployment is going to shoot up, businesses are going to close, commercial properties are going to be vacant, and we may continue to experience deflation. It’s hard to say, because the Fed needs to print money to cover the insane Bush/Obama Incompetence and Laziness Encouragement Plan. On the whole, however, I think cash is going to be a great thing to have over the next few years, and it’s probably a good time to sell commercial real estate, unless you have it leased to someone solvent.

There was disagreement about how to handle the sale. I thought it would be smart to divide the property. There are no comparable sales to speak of in the area where the property lies, so you can inflate the price of a piece of land by selling one part at a high price and then using the high price as leverage when you negotiate the prices of remaining pieces. But no one else in the family thought this was a good idea. They wanted to sell, period.

I was afraid that if I pushed my viewpoint, I would cause such conflict that relationships would be damaged. As a Christian, I realized this would be wrong. When you are confronted with obstinance and bad thinking, you may have to give way and trust God to fix it. For example, say your daughter wasn’t elected captain of the cheerleading squad, and the girl who got the position is a fat skeeze with no talent, not that you are judgmental or envious. You can’t firebomb the other girl’s house. You have to accept what happened and attack with prayer and faith.

So I restrained myself and did not push. I was afraid the other partners would jump at a crummy offer, just to get the cash, but I resolved to trust God rather than get in their faces. And I reminded myself that I might be wrong, and they might be right.

Well, the negotiations have taken place. We wanted X as a minimum price for the whole thing. The buyers can’t pay X. But they can pay a nice sum for part of the land, and they want an option on the rest, and if they buy it all, we’ll get about 1.6X. That’s just crazy. The most logical expectation was a miserable offer for the whole package. But the buyers are happy, and we’re happy, and unless there is some catch I don’t know about, I’m all for the deal.

So look what appears to be happening. I managed to control myself, and in the end, aren’t we getting the result I wanted in the first place?

Here’s another thing. One thing I prayed for was that my interest would be separated from everyone else’s. Why? For the same reason I would not date a non-Christian. Because partnering with people who don’t believe is a bad idea. They lead you into acts that are contrary to God’s will. They interfere with your blessings. So a sale is a good thing, because it separates my money, so I will be free to dispose of it as I see fit. I don’t have to worry about my relatives voting to rent the property to a whorehouse or something.

We’ll see if it works out. I’m assuming I understand the facts correctly.

Incidentally, some people think my gloomy assessment of the future of our country is unjustified. Some guy linked to my blog, called me “asshat,” and suggested I move to China. And his intelligent argument for the continued prosperity of America was the well-known title of a song made famous in a South Park movie featuring puppets. It’s always good to hear an opposing view which is clearly based on logic.

Some people think I’m unpatriotic for pointing out that God may be judging our nation, and that we may well be on our way to Second World status. They think pumping their fists and yelling “USA! USA!” will somehow put us back on top. But that’s exactly the attitude that put our economy in the toilet. When people said UAW workers were paid too much, and that the auto industry would fail, the autoworkers said, “USA! USA!” Now they’re saying “SOS! SOS!” and “OMG! OMG!” And soon they’ll be saying these things at the welfare office. The handouts are not going to save them. When your rowboat has a hole in it the size of a basketball, you don’t bail. You take it out of the water and patch the hole. The Big Three still have all the problems they had before two of them chose to become charity recipients, and they will continue to fail. Why would anyone expect them to succeed?

It’s just like Pajamas Media. I said it was a stupid idea, and people said I was a jerk, and they said I was too dumb to appreciate the genius of the PJs, and they quit talking to me, and they quit linking to my blog. Then PJM failed, exactly as I and the other non-sheep predicted, and Roger Simon sent all the member bloggers an email telling them they were off what he later described as “the dole”! Yes, yes, I was the enemy of conservatism. I was “the evil in the periphery”; that’s the funniest thing I was called. But who was right? Me or the cheerleaders?

Anyway, to get back to the economy…let’s get it through our heads. We didn’t become rich and powerful because we’re the master race. We are not better than foreigners. If we were, they wouldn’t come here penniless, out-compete us, and end up owning our businesses. There is nothing special about Americans. Absolutely nothing. Our educational system is second-rate. We are not the world’s hardest workers. The Bell Curve guys claim Asians are smarter than we are. We only did well because God helped us, and when he stops, we will stop doing well. That’s not unpatriotic. It’s truth. And once again, as it was in the PJ story, people like me are not the problem, any more than spots on an X-ray are the problem when you have cancer. Touch up the spots; the problem remains.

In the Bible, there were prophets who always said Israel and Judah were going to prosper. The kings and the people did all sorts of horrible things, and then the true prophets told them they were in deep trouble. So they called on the false prophets–the “patriots”–and the false prophets beat up the real prophets and said everything was going to be fine. It was after an episode like this that the king of Babylon took the king of Judah captive, murdered his sons while he watched, had him held down while his eyes were gouged out, and took him and a bunch of other Jews to Babylon in chains.

I’ll bet there were Jews listening to the false prophets, pumping their fists and yelling “JU-DAH! JU-DAH!”

As for moving to China, I don’t think it will be necessary. China is coming here. About half of it is in my garage. And I’m typing on some of it right now, while I read the words on yet another piece of it.

I wrote that without checking, and then I turned over my keyboard and looked. Sure enough: “Made in China.”

While I’m walking down this path, I’ll mention one other thing. A commenter scolded me for thinking the success of my gardening efforts was connected to my behavior as a Christian. I can’t figure that out. Open a Bible. See what it says about people who behave. Your crops will do well. Grapes, wheat, corn, whatever. “Running over.” “Abundance.” “Plenty.” It’s not figurative language, either. Not exclusively. It really does refer to things you plant. And you can look at Joel or Numbers 28 to see what happens to the things you plant, when you aren’t living right.

I bring this up because I checked on my yard today. For a long time, I could not get anywhere with fruit, and it didn’t seem to matter what I did to help things grow. Today I was shocked by what I saw. A ponkan tree which I thought I had wiped out sprouted blossoms unexpectedly, and I’m going to have tangerines. My older tangerine tree, which I nearly killed, has little fruit on it. My key limes are sprouting blossoms which I did not foresee. My cara cara has so many tiny fruit on it, I’m afraid I’ll have to cut a bunch off to keep them from killing it. My lychee is covered in blossoms. Even my pathetic tangelo tree is getting ready to bear. And get this: I found fruit on a MALE papaya tree. Is that even possible? I think my tree is gay. The other trees have produced one papaya after another, and this one has just generated doomed blossoms, but now it has fruit on it. And I have all sorts of little Persian limes on the way. My sole surviving tomato plant has no blossoms, but suddenly it’s very healthy, which is a near-impossibility here.

My lantana bushes, which I bought because they reminded me of Israel, are exploding with flowers. Even the weakest one, which I was worried about. I think it’s going to do well from now on. And my mango trees are lush and healthy, and there are a lot of little mangoes on them.

I think when you say God doesn’t affect little things like this, in effect, you’re saying God doesn’t do anything at all, which is what most Christians really believe. But if God is God, he does things, right? Isn’t that common sense? I think people develop a weird, hands-off picture of God because it enables them to keep believing in him when their prayers consistently go unanswered. You pray and pray, and nothing happens, and you say, “That’s okay, because God is really more of a big-picture guy, and he’s very busy running the world. It’s only natural that he would have no interest in my problems.”

Whatever. When I pray, I want to see some action.

Incidentally, I would be interested in knowing whether I’m the only one who has the impression that a lot of Christians are getting interested in guns, tools, and growing things. It’s crazy, but I keep running into people who have these interests. I have to wonder if we’re being prepared for something. Maybe when times get really bad, it will be good to have a bunch of tools, plenty of firearms and ammunition, and food growing on your land.

Here’s something crazy: my grandfather left me a big heavy bag of silver. He was a judge, and there was a toll road through the counties he served, and when we went off silver coins, he used his clout to get the toll collectors to save silver for him, and he bought it. Very odd thing to do; he was not a big metals investor. And now here I am, with bad times probably on the way, sitting on a hefty pile of silver coins. Is there a reason for it?

That’s all for this morning. I have to buy some steel and some welding gas, and I have a bunch of ideas for mounting tools on roller carts. Time is wasting.

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“Time is an Illusion; Lunchtime, Doubly So.”

I want to thank everyone with regard to the post I put up the other day about the property sale my family is negotiating. I asked for prayer. I come from a family in which people don’t do a very good job of structuring their estates. This is a tremendous evil to thrust on your kids. I have a cousin who was cut out of his father’s will in favor of his brother. He cornered his brother in the front seat of his truck and blew his guts out with a deer rifle and one or two other weapons. You really need to set your estate up, if you have anyone to leave money to.

It looks like the deal is working out much better than expected, and if it goes through, it will get a big source of conflict out of our lives. This, more than the money, is what concerned me. I give credit to God. I have to; it’s not like we’ve done anything shrewd or even competent in managing what was left to us.

I learned something amazing tonight. I have always said my family was cursed. Today I found out that someone in my line of descent–the last person you would imagine, if you knew my family–used an occult method to plan investments. No wonder we have had problems with the property. I can’t tell you how shocked I am.

I keep thinking about machine tools. I know you will think I’m nuts, and you probably do, regardless, but I keep feeling as though big tools are part of God’s plan for my life. I wish I also felt that way about Pop Tarts.

The Millrite I looked at was very nice, and I am tempted to jump on it. But I keep reading about the various ways in which it is inferior to a Bridgeport. And you have to see what someone mentioned to me. Click this link.

That is the business of a man who “scrapes” machine tools. Don’t even ask me to explain. Science will allow you to build a nice machine tool, but to make it accurate, you have to resort to art. Scraping is a bizarre process that prepares metal surfaces to work properly together, and people do it with hand tools.

Anyway, he takes old mills apart, scrapes them down, and rebuilds them. They are gorgeous. And the prices are very good. I’m so tempted.

This guy has a great reputation, for ethics as well as skill. I picked that up from reading the forums. That makes the deals harder to resist.

I contacted Plaza Machinery about a lathe. People say great things about this company. The owner says he’s in the hospital. Has a lathe I might want to buy, but it may take time.

Speaking of time, it has been on Mish Weiss’s mind. Her doctors seem to be debating about how much time she has left. The truth is, they don’t know. I hope she realizes that. And even if doctors were able to make predictions with any accuracy, in the end, God is in charge.

Please keep praying for Mish, and while you’re at it, throw in the guy from Plaza Machinery. Can’t hurt.

Three Hundred Million Blind Mice

I am somewhat leery of the practice of opening the Bible at random and asking God to tell me what to read. But sometimes I do it anyway, because I can’t decide what to look at. And I have to admit, it seems to work. Usually my eye lands on something very useful or appropriate.

Here’s something I stumbled on a few days back. It’s from the 12th chapter of Job:

9 Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?

10 In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.

11 Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?

12 With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.

13 With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding.

14 Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.

15 Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.

16 With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.

17 He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.

18 He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle.

19 He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty.

20 He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.

21 He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.

22 He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.

23 He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again.

24 He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.

25 They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.

This stuff is true. Job said some things that were wrong, and God corrected him, but much of what he said is consistent with the rest of the Bible.

Naturally, I thought of the current economic mess. Barack Obama is doing everything wrong, and leftist cheerleaders are issuing shrill but unconvincing screams of approval. Before Obama came along, liberals in our government screwed up by coercing banks to lend money to people who clearly could not pay. The people who ran our lending institutions made the bad loans, which is really astounding, if you consider what an obvious mistake it was. And George Bush made a bizarre eleventh-hour dive into the cesspool of socialism, rewarding those who helped put us in this mess and encouraging others like them to continue eroding our economy.

Electing Obama, in and of itself, was a remarkable mistake. He’s a career academic and politician with virtually no experience, and his only “qualification” is that he did well in law school. And the more time passes, the more inadequate and immature he appears.

How can you look at a string of boneheaded mistakes like this and not ask yourself if something beyond the natural is at work? The stupidity of the things we’ve done is powerfully evident, and to many people, it was evident before we did them. Can mere human error explain it? I find it hard to believe.

The world is like a rat maze, and we are like the rats. We can’t see over the sides of the partitions. We can only guess at the locations of the cheese and the electrodes that deliver electric shocks. When we find the cheese, we take the credit. We declare our superiority over the rats who have no cheese, and we say our success was due to a combination of hard work and extraordinary ability. Those things matter, but they are worthless unless someone who can see the maze from above gives us guidance. And if you don’t get that guidance, or, worse, you are guided toward the shocks, all your wonderful efforts and attributes amount to nothing.

It looks like Netanyahu is going to win the election in Israel. I am told he has his faults, but surely he will be an improvement over his naive land-ceding opponents. With any luck, he will work to rebuild Eretz Israel, and he will manage to get Obama on board, and our fortunes will improve, because we will no longer be working to undo God’s promise to Abraham.

Of course, if that happens, we will be told that the great genius Obama saved our hides.

Prophecy tells us nations that help divide Israel will be punished. I believe it wholeheartedly. I hope we change course before times get so hard Americans end up smuggling themselves to China in shipping containers.