When first starting ‘Mere Christianity,’ I wasn’t sure what to expect. The author informs at the beginning that it is basically a discussion about the bare-bones beliefs of a Christian, notwithstanding different denominations and the like. Basically, what virtually every mainstream Christian believes, hence, “‘Mere’ Christianity”.

It starts off as a kind of philosophy book that barely mentions Christianity. It ends up leading straight into Christianity, and takes an apologetics approach at having it make sense for the common man. Though I am not generally a fan of the use of analogies by many people in this world, C.S. Lewis makes some of the best analogies I have ever heard or read. Most of the time it feels as if the analogy is a 1-to-1 ratio in the comparisons made in this book, and where it isn’t, the author makes it a point to mention that it doesn’t square up perfectly, but that it’s the best he can do at that time. This was one of the most surprising aspects of this book to me. It’s also a great book for busy-bodies. That is to say, there are 227 pages in the book, with a total of 33 chapters. That is an average of about 7 pages a chapter, which makes it great to read on a commute or during lunch breaks at work (something I do myself).

Amazingly, the book is pretty much a transcription of a series of radio talks that the author gave during World War II. Instead of spicing it up to make it sound like a typical book, it reads like a person is talking straight to you without use of overly big words and so on. It’s kind of a breath of fresh air for those that read philosophy or books about religion.

I highly recommend this book for those that are interested in the basic tenets of Christianity. It is an easy read.

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I am the type of person that likes to know, and understand, points of view other than my own when it comes to politics. Being a fan of Ronald Reagan, I decided to search Google for the “best anti-Reagan books”. Listed among them on one site was this book by Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor. I found out on that site that it was out of print, but worth reading. I hit eBay, found a cheap copy (the only one on there at the time), and grabbed it.

What a mistake that was. There are so many things that I like that this author detests, that I couldn’t even be brought to finish the book 100%. It’s just a painful read. That having been said, here is a short write-up of it.

The chapters in the book are setup as years. It ranges from 1980 through 1989, and each chapter is broken down further into months. And from there broken down to days, though not every day is “chronicled”. Each day that is “chronicled” has some sort of item that happened that day, or something that someone said, or something of the sort. Ranging from pop culture to the Reagan administration, there is something noted for many of the days of each month during the years in the decade… phew!

The problem is, it is short of substance and full of snark. Everything listed that happened with the administration is supposed to make the reader think, “Boy, that Reagan sure was an idiot.” Not just for policy, but for simply _breathing_. If there is someone out there looking for a rational book that is against Reagan, stay far away from this one. It is intended only for a far left audience.

Furthermore, the subtitle, “A Chronicle of the American 80′s,” should be changed to, “I Hate the 80′s and Everything About Them”. The author puts forth short bursts of disgust against such things as the movies E.T., Top Gun, and Beverly Hills Cop. He also hates the song Eye of the Tiger by Survivor.

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“Look, the right course for America’s government, we were talking about the role of government, is not to become the economic player.”

“The last player that can step forward is government, and that’s why we’re going to have to have our government take action to stimulate the economy.”

… and…

“I think it’s frankly not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in.”

“On the spending front though we’re also have to spend more. I hate doing that as a conservative, but I think we ought to spend more.”

Here’s the source they come from. It’s only within the first two minutes of the video, so it won’t take long:

These two sets of seeming contradictions can be addressed together, as they both come from the same source. To the first point about “the last player that can step in” being the federal government. This is dishonest editing at its finest. Right after he made that statement on Meet the Press, here is what Gov. Romney said:

“I think, actually, that tax reductions for middle-income individuals, lowering our corporate tax rates, those will have the biggest impact. Actually, Greg (?), former Chairman of the Council of Economic advisors says that tax cuts have a greater muliplier effect; more bang for the buck, even than more spending.”

Onto the portion where he says, “I think we ought to spend more.” Of course, this is a mid-sentence edit. Directly following that, he says:

“to upgrade our military equipment. It’s been shot up, it’s been lost in the middle east. But the government is going to have to step forward, not only with monetary policy to add funding and capital to the capital markets so we see more lending, but also for additional spending and lower taxes.”

It seems to me that is a far cry from being on the opposite side from what he has been advocating. In the first instance he is talking about government reductionism within the stimulus. When he talks about spending, he points to the military, which is a legitimate federal government responsibility. The only question mark is the quick mention of monetary policy, which he didn’t get to get into due to the quick nature of these kind of round table formats.

Consider the first 25 seconds of Romney debating himself to be null-and-void.

“Regulation is essential. You can’t have a free market work if you don’t have regulation.”

“But I’m going to cut back on regulation. I’m going to put a cap on regulation.”

I’m not quite sure what the argument being made here is. Maybe if he said, “I’m going to get rid of all regulation,” then there’d be an argument. I can’t think of an instance where I have heard him say that. As it is, cutting back on regulation doesn’t mean there is no regulation. If you want, you can think of it this way. Recently, Al Sharpton said something along the lines of, “not all voter I.D. laws are equal.” The same is true here. Not every regulation is just as good as another. Each one must be looked at.

Consider the first 34 seconds of Romney debating himself to be null-and-void.

“Cuz I want to bring back housing.”

“Don’t try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom.”

Of course this is presented as him being heartless or some such. Amazingly, that’s not the end of what he said:

“Number two, the credit that was given to first-time homebuyers was insufficient and inadequate to turn around the housing market. I think it was an ineffective idea, it was a little bit like the Cash For Clunkers program, throwing government money at something, which was not market-oriented, did not staunch the decline in home values any more than it encouraged the auto industry to take off. I think the idea of helping people refinance homes to stay in them is one that’s worth further consideration. But I’m not signing on until I find out who’s gonna pay, and who’s gonna get bailed out. And that’s not something that we know all the answers to yet.”

So there are other avenues he is thinking about. So putting this together with the out-of-context quote in the “debates himself” video shows that there is more to what is on his mind. Go figure.

Consider the first 41 seconds of Romney debating himself to be null-and-void.

“Cut taxes for the rich, that’s not what I’m going to do.”

“We’re going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20%, including the top 1%.”

Here we have bad wording from Romney. He distinguishes between “revenue” going to the government (taxes), and rates, during the presidential debate, while offsetting as much as possible by scrapping certain deductions and the like. It’s not the first time either. He talked about this while on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That clip will be below, so for now, just consider this little segment null-and-void.

“And the key to great schools: great teachers.”

“More teachers? Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government.”

I can’t find a video which has the entire speech he gave here, only a very, very slightly longer clip. So I will go ahead and give a +10 seconds to this video that is not null-and-void.

“In fact I do have a plan that deals with people with pre-existing conditions, that’s part of my health care plan.”

“You’ve got to get insurance when you’re well, and so that if you get ill you’ll be covered.”

Well, here’s a nice little video on Hulu that I referenced above when talking about the tax cuts/rates dealy-o. So you can see what he said about that, plus what he says about pre-existing conditions here:

When you listen to what he says on The Tonight Show, you will realize he is being consistent. He wants to address pre-existing conditions in a way that makes more sense. You can’t just let something happen to you, then approach an insurance company and say “insure me, I’m sick.” That makes no sense, as that person hasn’t ponied up any kind of money at all. But making an exception for someone that is in-between work and loses a certain coverage seems like a good idea to me. That will probably equal to only a bump in the road for an insurance company if it is handled in such a way. Maybe even have a method whereby the person can transfer a capped amount of funds from the other company to get them started at the new one. Anyway…

“And we have to have a president who can reach across the aisle, and fashion important legislation with the input from both parties.”

“Time and again I vetoed measure after measure.”

I don’t understand what this is trying to say. Just because he vetoed lots of things doesn’t mean there was no reaching across the aisle. I find this to be a bizzare pairing.

“As president I will sit down on day one [...] I’ll sit down with leaders, the democratic leaders as well as republican leaders.”

“As our president, day one, I will take action to repeal Obamacare.”

I don’t get this either. Is this supposed to be an attack on Pres. Obama? I mean, that Affordable Health Care act was awfully partisan.

“I figured out from day one, I had to get along. And I had to work across the aisle to get anything done.”

“I was a severely conservative republican governor.”

Alrighty then.

I’ve got to say, this whole sound bite thing in politics gets old. I suppose that’s the nature of the beast. Unfortunately the ones that are losing are the people that want to know where a candidate actually stands. All I know is that out of a video with one minute and forty-three seconds, I found ten seconds that I can’t address. The main theme of the “debates himself” video is that Romney at the debates wasn’t the REAL Romney. After looking at the sources contained in the video that holds the contradictions, and also things he said at other venues that took place long before the debates, I am unconvinced that Romney wasn’t the REAL Romney. It seems to me that was him and the same views he has been putting forward.

Ah well.

Cross-posted on Daily Kos and RedState.

As noted on Sen. Jim DeMint’s website, there was an article in the New York Times that talks about the decline in mammograms among younger women. Here’s a short excerpt:

Looking specifically at the number of mammograms performed from January 2006 to December 2010, they compared the number of procedures that took place before the task force’s guidelines with the number that were performed in the year that followed. Over all, about eight million women ages 40 to 64 were included in the study.
In the year after the guidelines were published, nearly 54,000 fewer mammograms were performed on women ages 40 to 49. That represented a 5.72 percent decrease from the previous period.

The reason for this is that the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended that women don’t need to get mammograms under the age of 50. And though you will find language on the web that says mammograms are “free,” insurance companies are going to follow what government says. After all, if the government says, “Hey, don’t do XYZ,” and the insurance company figures out that it will save them money, don’t you think they’ll do that? I think so.

Don’t believe all the hype about how much Ryan was booed at the AARP. You can watch the entire thing for yourself and see the mixed reaction he received: Paul Ryan at the AARP.

I was watching a panel of people in government talk about and somewhat debate the topic of voter ID laws. It was basically a bunch of democrats saying they were being victimized because of race and what-not. There are a couple of valid points in the whole 2 1/2 hour discussion, but I found it overall to be unproductive. Not to mention they had Nancy Pelosi, Miss Queen Rich herself, talking to a crowd telling them that they need to stop rich people from telling them what to do, in essence. Very ironic, I’d say.

More to the point, I’ve noticed that there seems to be a quiet talking about eliminating voter registration altogether. It is somehow undemocratic to have to register to vote. I find that utterly ridiculous as we have pourous borders and millions upon millions of illegals that should not have the right to determine our elections. As it is, this is the first time I heard it. A gentleman by the name of Melvin Watt brought it up during the panel. I have a clip that you can view:

You can hear John Lewis agree with an enthusiastic “YES!” during his speaking.

On another C-SPAN show, Washington Journal, there was an excerpt from a Washington Post op-ed that was read aloud. Here is that clip:

That full article can be read online here: Washington Post Op-Ed: Easing the burden of voter registration

The op-ed goes on to say that “[n]o one in the United States would say that voter registration is anti-democratic,” but that’s obviously wrong, as we heard Melvin Watt say that just above in the other clip. It’s hard to tell if Bassetti thinks it would be better to have no registration, but it is certainly alluded to.

I find this alarming, as I mentioned earlier, since there are so many illegals and our government seems bent on not doing anything about our borders. I fear foreign money taking part in our elections like anyone else, but I fear more at having millions of non-Americans actually casting ballots in those elections.