Moving already?

Yep. Here's the new url:

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/

Since I go by the handle "theblogprof," I decided to move this blog over to a url that accurately reflects that handle. So please change your bookmarks if you're following along.

Thanks!

-Chris

WSJ: Beam me up, Scottie! This stimulus sucks!

The Wall Street Journal is on the warpath today against the non-stimulus stimulus bill. The article lists a litany of spending that appear to have absolutely nothing to do with stimulating economic activity. Scratch that. It's not that it doesn't 'appear to,' it's that it simply does not. In any case, read the whole thing, but here's the wrap up of that article that should make the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up:

The larger fiscal issue here is whether this spending bonanza will become part of the annual "budget baseline" that Congress uses as the new floor when calculating how much to increase spending the following year, and into the future. Democrats insist that it will not. But it's hard -- no, impossible -- to believe that Congress will cut spending next year on any of these programs from their new, higher levels. The likelihood is that this allegedly emergency spending will become a permanent addition to federal outlays -- increasing pressure for tax increases in the bargain. Any Blue Dog Democrat who votes for this ought to turn in his "deficit hawk" credentials.

This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead -- Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.

Yikes!

MEA to MI: save money by making pension problem worse!

From the pages of the freep this morning, there was this: Michigan Education Association has plan: Get teachers to retire. Sounded good until you read the subline: "Better pensions for 9,000 sought." Better pensions, I thought (eyebrow raised). For 9,000 employees? From the article:

The plan, to be announced today by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, would save schools statewide nearly $411 million next year and $1.7 billion over 10 years, according to the Michigan Education Association.

But how will the this affect the pension fund for public employees? How much of an increase would it take to entice 9,000 teachers to take the bump?

The proposed change would increase monthly benefits by about a third, according to the MEA. The average monthly increase would be about $500.

$500 per month for 9,000 retirees = $4.5million per month. For a LONG time. 30 years of teaching when one starts at say 24 years of age would make many of these retirees only 54 years old (some even younger). There will be plenty of years left for these former teachers to collect these pensions. And herein lies the problem. What is the state of the pension fund right now? You can get that info from the Michigan Department of Management and Budget Office of Retirement Services blah, blah, blah. Just hit the link here. You can get financial data each fiscal year beginning in 1997. In any case, I hit the link for 2008 and started sifting through (just search for "liability" or "unfunded" and you'll find what you need quickly). On page 46 of that document, here's what you get: Note the number I circled. $24,957. Unfunded. Doesn't sound bad until you realize that all the numbers on this page are in MILLIONS! So $24,957 Million = $25 BILLION! (With a really big, capital "B") The pension fund in currently $25 billion dollars in the hole! So I guess in the MEA's worldview, the numbers they're talking about will 'only' add about $54million per year to a $25billion dollar hole. No problem!

Since Michigan's fiscal year doesn't end until June 31, the above numbers were released before the housing meltdown (I have my own take on that here). So we really won't know for a while, but I will guess that $25Billion will go over $30Billion or more this summer, a combination of pension fund losses in the market, and underfunding the fund in the first place. In addition, I would just note the yearly unfunded liability since 1997. It got really bad once Granholm-Cherry got into office. Sure you can blame the state economy, but that is totally the resposibility of the administration. After all, we've been in a one-state recession for 6 years now. The debt will continue every year for the foreseeable future. No end in sight. Just a monster tsunami developing off our fiscal coast (speaking of - pensiontsunami is a website you all might want to bookmark). A time of reckoning will come.

So back to MEA's proposal. It's basically a credit card solution. Use the plastic now. Pay for it for years to come. I don't believe that this will do anything good for Michigan's future, short or long-term. Even in the short term, the money saved now in paying younger versus older teachers will be outweighed by making the debt avalanche bigger, thus making it a more difficult problem in the future. I give this proposal a thumbs down.

MEA getting 'exposure' it doesn't want

This from OutsideLansing (HT:rightmichigan): Kyle Olson Lays Siege to MEA - FOIA'd E-mail RELEASED from Wayne-Westland. Excerpts:

...But Kyle Olson, the nefarious (in the eyes of the MEA) now-two-man gang (he appears to have hired former Muskegon Chronicle writer Steve Gunn as a communications guy) known as the Education Action Group, writes this op-ed (School Boards Under Siege by MEA inspired recall elections) in the Lansing St. Journal yesterday taking note.

Unfortunately, the Michigan Education Association doesn't want you to see it that way. The union wants Michigan voters to cooperate with its plan to recall board members who threaten its greedy financial goals.

The MEA's recall strategy has already plagued the Harrison, St. Clair Shores Lakeview, Reed City, Gladstone, Southfield, Wayne-Westland, Garden City and Redford Union districts, to name a few. And if other school boards dare question the union's financial goals, they could be targeted, too.

What crimes have the targeted board members committed?

They considered saving precious dollars by cutting ties with MESSA, the expensive health insurance carrier owned and operated by the MEA; or by privatizing support services like transportation, custodial work or food preparation.

In the St. Clair Shores Lakeview district, for instance, the board dumped MESSA and replaced it with comparable insurance coverage, saving about $500,000 per year. The MEA responded with a recall attempt against four board members, which, fortunately, failed at the polls.

And Olson goes a step further. Just yesterday afternoon on a separate matter, he released e-mails obtained through FOIA from the Wayne-Westland district both proving both the recall connection in that district and a number of other interesting goodies. See here, at MEAExposed.com. There's a bunch of stuff in there - more than just a story about MESSA or MEA recalls. It's part of a Rosetta stone as to how special interests work.

MEAExposed.com has some pretty embarrassing stuff on the MEA. I would say "Ouch!" except that the MSM will likely never report any of this information. Too bad for Michigan school districts.

Democrats Launch Petition Against Rush Limbaugh

That's not a joke. It's really happening. (it's happened before, so looks like the dems are content to repeat history)

(CNSNews.com) – The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has launched an online petition for readers to express their outrage at conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh for saying last week that he wanted President Barack Obama to fail.

Here's the ENTIRE interview with Rush:

Now can you say that Rush wants Obama to fail?

This from the Detroit Free Press yesterday: Limbaugh fails his country. An absolute hack job of an article. The only snippet of Rush's interview in Leonard Pitts's article is "I hope he fails." Nice job Pitts! What ever happened to journalists reporting the news? Journalistic integrity? Does. Not. Exist. Especially at the "Free" Press.

Did this happen ALREADY????

Moscow Rolls Obama, Euro Missile Defense Apparently Shelved. Remember Biden's forecast? See here:

From the article: "While the headlines all blare "Russia suspends missile plans in Kaliningrad," the real news is "Why?" " Read the whole post for a chronological list of events. If true, then this is very bad. (HT:CG)

James Hansen REBUKED BY BOSS!

James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic - Says Hansen ‘Embarrassed NASA’, ‘Was Never Muzzled’, & Models ‘Useless’. Well this ought to put a few things to rest, no? Well, actually - no. no it won't. Don't expect this to get any play across the MSM. James Hansen will still be hailed a 'leading scientist' and Al Gore will still be... well - Al Gore. In any case, the article here exposes some extraordinary facts. Here are some excerpts:

For those just joining the climate discussion, Dr. James Hansen is the chief climate scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and is the man who originally raised the alarm on global warming in 1988 in an appearance before congress. He is also the keeper of the most often cited climate data.

NASA warming scientist James Hansen, ... is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.

Then the final paragraph wraps up some of the anti-anthropogenic global warming evidence that I have touched on in this blog:

On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick“; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Spotless Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Global sea ice; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.

The article is a great read, with lots of links and in-depth information. So go ahead and read the whole thing! (HT:CG)

Nail. Coffin.

Catholic shame

A good post on RedState titled Are You Happy Now? Just a few excerpts:

The relationship of the Catholic Church with conservatives and the Republican party is a very conflicted one. The institutional Church is probably second only to academia in glomming onto every new bit of left wing lunacy that comes bouncing down the pike. The Church has, however, as a whole been stalwart on life and family issues. Unfortunately, the opposition to abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage, indeed one could say based on these issues the defense of Western Civilization, places them at loggerheads with their emotional allies: liberal democrats.

In the 2004 election the Heirarchy was taken aback by demands of conservative Catholics and conservative non-Catholics alike that they adhere to their own rules in regards to support for abortion...

Having been burned in 2004, they became too cute by half. In 2007 a pamphlet was issued called Faithful Citizenship. In this document or bishops managed to make voting for any candidate acceptable while appearing to condemn abortion across the board:

34. Catholics often face difficult choices about how to vote. This is why it is so important to vote according to a well-formed conscience that perceives the proper relationship among moral goods. A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.

35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons.Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.

Essentially, this construction allows you to take any social ill and elevate it above abortion. (emphasis mine)

I never understood the squeemishness of the Catholic heirarchy. Being raised in a Catholic household myself, it was apparent to me pretty early on thta many traditions of the Catholic Church no longer follow anything that the Bible had prescribed. The Church had gone rogue. Happened a few hundred years after JC, then got really bad in the middle ages. They now have no moral authority over anything. Evolution? They bought it. Global warming? Bought that too. Just no bearings whatsover anymore. That being said, they have a few things correct to this day. The trinitarian nature of God. The evil of abortion. But yet, they waiver, and allow for the voting for pro-abort politicians based on other social issues. What exactly could possibly be more grave than killing babies?

In essence, by watering down their standars and not drawing a line in the sand on this one issue, they have allowed politicians to be elected that would like nothing more than to foist FOCA on the 50 states, and have thus become complicit in what is coming down the pike. There is simply no excuse for this. In any case, the article then concludes, similar to my thoughts on the subject:

In a quest to be invited to the right parties and seen with the right people our own bishops stand condemned of being complicit in the abortion of about one million children each year by continuing to allow pro-abort Catholic politicians to receive the Eucharist and by failing to teach the simple truth from the pulpit: that besides the horror of infanticide and euthanasia all other issues pale by comparison.

Biden apologizes to Roberts

Via MSNBC (HT:HA):

Sources familiar with the conversation say Vice President Joe Biden telephoned Chief Justice John Roberts last week to apologize for a remark he made about the chief's memory.

"My memory is not as good as Chief Justice Roberts's," Biden said last Wednesday, as he prepared to administer the oath of office to new senior White House staffers. The remark did not appear to go over well with President Obama, who did not smile, though some in the room laughed. Biden's remark came the day after the infamous flub that occurred as Roberts led Obama through the oath of office.

Here's the original video of the offhanded remark by Biden:

I'd say we should expect more of this from Biden. MUCH, MUCH more. Then again, Obama did NOT look happy, did he now? Maybe he told Joe to keep the trap shut?

The Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan

as Heritage put it. Anyway, here's this: [BREAKING] Boehner to House GOP: Vote against the stimulus. (HT:RS) Politico reports:

President Barack Obama is coming to the Capitol this afternoon to curry favor
with congressional Republicans. But it appears GOP leaders have already made up
their minds to oppose his $825 billion stimulus plan.

Finally some sanity on the Hill? I'm not holding my breath just yet.

Calling evil good, and good evil

This last week marked some ominous events in our nation. January 22 marked the 36th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision by the Supreme Court, an act of judicial fiat that foisted upon us murder on demand of any or all of our unborn children, surely the most vulnerable and innocent of us all. Obama released a press release that, in part, read:

"On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose."

Never mind that government already intrudes in family matters, forcing most parents to send their children to public indoctrinations centers (a.k.a. public schools), not of the choosing of the parents, that ultimately miserably fail at their supposed basic function (education). Also, try spanking your child these days and see how fast CPS comes to your door. So much for that non-interference platitude.

Then, the very next day, The One signed an executive order forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions overseas. This at a time when our nation is flat broke. Maybe he should watch this short video I posted the other day:

LaShawn Barber had an excellent op-ed on the RvW anniversary that she originally wrote in 2003. It has the basic theme that I want to touch on today:

Last October, the Metropolitan Washington region was paralyzed with fear, wondering when and where a cold-blooded killer would strike next. Mobilized into action, law enforcement agencies on the federal, state and local levels were on the case of the “D.C. sniper” 24-7. With a mass murderer on the loose, the media covered the story round-the-clock. Righteous indignation pumped through the veins of red-blooded Americans. When the murderous pair was caught, the whole country was relieved.

Yet, when it comes to the slaughter of unborn children, the nation tarries. Thirteen people were killed in the sniper attacks; 43 million people–over a million a year–have been killed since Roe v. Wade. On March 13, 2003, a Republican Senate spoke loudly and clearly against the slaughter by voting to ban partial birth abortion 64-33.

The bill prohibits doctors from committing an “overt act” designed to kill a partially delivered fetus. The bill legally defines a partial birth abortion as any abortion in which a baby is delivered “past the naval…outside the mother’s womb” before being killed. The Senate-passed version of the bill is on its way to the House of Representatives, where it will likely pass. As expected, House Democrats (like the Congressional Black Caucus), protectors of criminals, perverts, animals, trees and rocks, will fight with their very lives against the ban on infanticide. Liberal lunacy notwithstanding, the bill will be signed into law by President Bush.

Meanwhile, day after day, babies in the womb are cut to pieces, torn apart and chemically poisoned to death all for sacred “choice.” Here’s how a group calling itself the Childbirth by Choice Trust describes abortion to teenagers: “To remove the contents of her uterus, the doctor gradually opens the cervix and inserts a small tube. This tube is attached to a machine which gently suctions the inside of the uterus. The doctor then carefully checks the uterus with an instrument, to be sure no tissue (read: human being) remains. The entire procedure takes about 10 minutes.” No sweat.

Partial birth abortions, unlike the inconvenient “gob of tissue” scraped from the womb in early abortions, are gruesome. To avoid being charged under state murder statutes, the abortion “doctors” pull the baby only halfway out of the womb. In Josef Mengele-like fashion, the abortionist jams the tip of surgical scissors into the base of the baby’s skull, suctioning out its brain through a catheter.

Despite such an appalling scene, infanticide supporter Senator Barbara Boxer said that partial birth abortion is a “political” term, not a “medical” one. According to Boxer, the term is “made up” and “very emotional,” implying that supporters of the ban to stop this carnage actually want to evoke sympathy for babies murdered in the womb. Right-wing nuts!

A society that tolerates child killing is a society doomed for judgment. God warned ancient Israel to refrain from worshipping the Ammonite false deity, Molech. First-born children were “passed through the fire” and burned to death as a sacrifice to Molech under the illusion they’d be given prosperity.

Israel disobeyed God’s laws, resulting in generations of moral decline and severe wrath: Famine, plague, cannibalism, invasion and domination by surrounding pagan nations, captivity into slavery, persecution and death.

Molech must be mighty pleased with America. Millions of children are sacrificed every year for similar motives. Approximately 93 percent of all induced abortions are done for elective, non-medical reasons (read: convenience). Although abortion proponents claim the procedure is rare, it’s not rare enough. Partial birth abortions have more than tripled in the past four years to about 2,200 annually.

The U.S. has been facing its own moral decline for some time, but it has yet to suffer the fate of ancient Israel. While abortion proponents continue to euphemistically refer to infanticide as “intrauterine cranial decompression” or “intact dilation and evacuation,” God has promised that the slaying of the innocent will not go unpunished. He says in Jeremiah 19: “Because they have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods…and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent…I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life; and I will give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. I will also make this city a desolation.”

In the aftermath of September 11, it became chic even for liberals to haughtily exclaim, “God bless America!” Perhaps the more appropriate petition would be: God have mercy on America.

With all of these things happening this last week, I looked at the big picture. Specifically, what liberals think about all the issues surrounding our culture. Abortion of the innocent? Good! Capital punishment for the guilty? Evil! Forcing kids into failing government-run schools? Good! Vouchers that let parents choose private Christian schools? Evil! Judging people by there skin color (aka - affirmative action)? Good! Judging people only by the content of their character? Evil! I could go on and on with this list. The gay agenda, the elimination of personal responsibility, putting as many people as possible under the thumb of big government, etc., ad infinitum. What the U.S. stands for has been turned on its head, and what used to evil is now considered good, and visa versa. At least in liberal la-la land, which is being increasingly imposed on us through many channels, most prominently these days by judicial activism.

This aspect of moder liberalism brings Isiah 5:20 to mind (NIV version):

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter

Now darkness can never win against the light. The only way to impose darkness is to cover up the light. To keep it hidden. It is no coincidence that Christianity is under unprecedented attack at the same time as these evil policies are being imposed on us all. WE THE PEOPLE appear to have less and less say as time goes on, as we are increasingly coming under the tyranny of the black robe.

As a final note, I was thinking of the "good is evil, evil is good" inversion the other day. i have heard it before. It took me a while sifting through my memory banks to find exactly where it was. Here is where I heard it before:

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell a shill for Obama

No! You don't say. Well, then again, see the video:

Is she really playing "devil's advocate" as she claims, or rather "Obama's advocate?" (HT:RS)