Good morning.

1. More antisemitism noted.
2. English usage corrected … or not.
3. “More” border security.
4. On that flight attendant.
5. How long will that candidate last?
6. A pair of books noted.
7. An evolutionary ethics (?!) scholar. Heh.
8. Climate and the Russian heat wave.
9. Of suffering and truth.
10. Some photo-essays.
11. Is outrage!
12. Keynesian angst.
13. The gospel is not limited to a social accomplishment, or something like that.

Good morning.

1. So you know.
2. Healthcare news.
3. An logical rhetorical fallacy can occasionally be apt. 
4. A lesson for the day.
5. Liberals and stupid numbers tricks. When chiding one news source for not being demographically “flat” noting without comment that the other similar sources are likewise not flat is just silly.
6. More on recession and supply and a reply.
7. Taxes and graphs.
8. Ooooh, GM pulls a profit, not mentioned is that they did so primarily selling SUVs and … if the Feds dump $50billion in your lap and you can’t pull a profit … well, give it up.
9. Children and dignity, fail.
10. Antisemitism.
11. Prop 8 news from a neutral corner.
12. On Eat, Pray, Love.

Good morning.

1. Parables about plagiarism.
2. Contra the latest bailout/stimulus bill.
3. A left handed defense of Mr Bloom.
4. Stirring up fear.
5. Soteriology and praxis.
6. Debt and growth.
7. A challenge for the Keynsian.
8. Nuclear weapons and the Administration.
9. On Market … hey, that gives me an idea … when businesses fail they cease to exist, maybe we should have a policy of “failing” and terminating, say, three government agencies every year based on their effectiveness.
10. This is not unrelated to the above.
11. Hmm, I don’t think I’ve heard a dumber idea in a long time.

Paul Krugman has often touted the wonders of the information coming out of the Congressional Budge Office (CBO).  This was especially true during the health care bill and stimulus debates.  James Taranto hits some of the highlights.

“The Congressional Budget Office has looked at the future of American health insurance, and it works. . . . Last week the budget office scored the full proposed legislation from the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). And the news–which got far less play in the media than the downbeat earlier analysis–was very, very good. Yes, we can reform health care.”–former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, New York Times, July 6, 2009

“Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office has concluded, the proposed legislation would reduce, not increase, the budget deficit. And by giving us a chance, finally, to rein in the ever-growing spending of Medicare, it would greatly improve our long-run fiscal prospects.”–Krugman, New York Times, Dec. 4, 2009

“The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that by 2050 the emissions limits in recent proposed legislation would reduce real G.D.P. by between 1 percent and 3.5 percent from what it would otherwise have been. If we split the difference, that says that emissions limits would slow the economy’s annual growth over the next 40 years by around one-twentieth of a percentage point–from 2.37 percent to 2.32 percent. That’s not much.”–Krugman, New York Times, Dec. 7, 2009

“Fortunately, the Congressional Budget Office, which has done an evaluation of the roadmap [for cutting Medicare costs, offered by Rep. Paul Ryan], offers a translation: ‘Some higher-income enrollees would pay higher premiums, and some program payments would be reduced.’ In short, there would be Medicare cuts.”–Krugman, New York Times, Feb. 12, 2010

“And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform [ObamaCare] will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.”–Krugman, New York Times, March 12, 2010

“As Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, recently put it, ‘There is no intrinsic contradiction between providing additional fiscal stimulus today, while the unemployment rate is high and many factories and offices are underused, and imposing fiscal restraint several years from now, when output and employment will probably be close to their potential.’ “–Krugman, New York Times, July 2, 2010

“That’s why the Congressional Budget Office rates aid to the unemployed as a highly cost-effective form of economic stimulus.”–Krugman, New York Times, July 5, 2010

But as soon as a Republican starts to use CBO numbers to show how his plan for overhauling federal spending and taxes, well suddenly it is simplicity itself to game the system.

“What you need to realize is that the CBO is the servant of members of Congress, which means that if a Congressman asks it to analyze a plan under certain assumptions, it will do just that–no matter how unrealistic the assumptions may be.”–Krugman, NYTimes.com, Aug. 6, 2010

This bit of information would have been good to give to his readers back in the day.  You know, those readers who take everything he says at face value.

Good morning.

1. Morning … in photo.
2. A response to a liberal charge of bigotry.
3. Problems with the standard story on Hiroshima.
4. Uhm, they need to add the “new” adjective to that post. For example, I bought a used Insight and economy wise I think I did pretty good compared to that Mercedes, e.g., driving from Chicago to Atlanta on less than 10 gallons of gas.
5. Zapp.
6. Ethnicity and church.
7. Climate.
8. An economic prescription for future growth and prosperity, which doesn’t involved more and more failing debt and stimulus.
9. A lawyer looks at case-law involving birthplace and citizenship.
10. Laffer curve and a poll (for myself I think the guy whose link I followed to get there was right).
11. The descent of cute.
12. Euro debt.
13. On the Ryan thing, here and the related Krugman stupidity here.

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#6.  Charles Colson. Statesman  b. 1931 

 

It is no exaggeration to say that that the Christian conversion of Charles Colson in 1973 stands in stature and impact among the modern era’s most visible and consequential. The startling front-page news that Colson had found Christ raised eyebrows throughout the country and struck fear in a White House besieged by Watergate and not anxious to see one of its defendants find the confession booth. But the enduring impact of Colson is not only the public conversion of a political scoundrel, but his lifelong ministry to the imprisoned, the evidence of intellectual support for the leap of faith, his pioneering analysis of daily news in light of ancient Scripture, his surprising emphasis on church unity, and as a senior leader his behind-the-scenes influence in the halls of power.

One could easily make the case that Colson is the central evangelical figure in the last generation. He was not the most visible, popular, best-selling, controversial, quoted, or cited—but he is among the leaders in all of those categories. At the same time, much of his influence is behind the scenes and through his profound influence on influencers.

I saw much of this unfold as an associate, aide, and consultant to Colson over nearly two decades, from the early 80s into the new millenium, serving for part of that time as his chief of staff, and—as he would occasionally say with a chuckle—his hatchet man. 

Chuck Colson’s life and work has had an enormous impact in at least these five areas:

Conversion

Colson was known as the White House “hatchet man,” a man feared by even the most powerful politicos during his four years of service to President Nixon. When news of Colson’s conversion to Christianity leaked to the press in 1973, the Boston Globe reported, “If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everybody.” Colson would agree. He admits he was guilty of political “dirty tricks” and willing to do almost anything for the cause of his president and his party.

“My conversion kept the political cartoonists of America clothed and fed for months. The cartoons were all somewhat the same: a picture of me in a monk’s habit, standing outside the White House fence, with a sign that read: Repent!

“But before my conversion I wasn’t nearly as bad as I was made out to be,” Colson told me, “And I’m not nearly as good as a Christian as I’m made out to be. But it makes for a great testimony!”

 That testimony is usually confused in the re-telling, with the story including a Watergate conviction that resulted in a prison sentence for Colson, and while in prison sentence he turned to God. The facts are that Colson, in the midst of the Watergate hearings, dramatically came to faith in Christ in 1973, and as a result of his new faith and life, he decided, in 1974, to plead guilty to a charge that was related to Nixonian dirty tricks (but not directed related to the Watergate break-in or cover-up). Colson was sentenced to prison on the basis of the guilty plea and he entered prison as a Christian and began his conversion memoir, Born Again, during his seven months in prison. Born Again was one of the nation’s best-selling books of all genres in 1976 and was made into a feature-length film.

His heavily publicized commitment to Jesus Christ as a highly visible public figure has been instrumental in many conversions among, for the lack of a better word, the elite in this nation and around the world. 

 Prison Ministry

Because Chuck Colson began his Christian life in prison, the needs of prisoners and the failures of the criminal justice system were among the first problems that God brought to his attention, the commitment he made to help those prisoners is a promise he has never broken. The attention he brought to prison ministry has changed the church.

 Upon his release Colson founded Prison Fellowship (in 1976), which has become the world’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners, crime victims, and their families. Christians had been ministering to people in prison throughout the history of the church, but it had never had scale and visibility; neither was it well-funded. As a result of Chuck Colson’s intelligence, notoriety, communications skills, organizing ability, and fundraising prowess, Prison Fellowship has grown to unimaginable proportions (for a prison ministry), and prison outreach has become a prominent part of church programming. [Many of Prison Fellowship’s largest donors had only marginal interest in prison work. As one major contributor told me: “If Chuck asked me to support a basket-weaving ministry, I’d do it.” We called this part of the donor base “Colson groupies.”

 Applying a Christian Worldview to Secular Culture

It wasn’t long after he began Prison Fellowship, that Colson sensed God’s calling to comment on the culture and the church’s interaction with the culture through the written and spoken word. It was clear immediately his knowledge and life experiences were unique among Christian leaders. Colson called on Christians to begin each day “with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” After his two autobiographic books that described his conversion (Born Again) and the beginning of the prison ministry (Life Sentence), he moved markedly toward a critique of church and culture, beginning with Loving God in 1983, often using illustrations from the rough world of prison ministry to make his larger points.

 In later years, perhaps sensing his own mortality, Colson began a center to train a new generation of leaders to renew the church and revitalize the culture. Colson describes this as a new effort “to be salt and light, rubbed into the culture in such a way that the people and institutions around us slowly begin to understand that they have embraced the Lie, and to replace it with the Truth of a biblical understanding of all of reality.”

 Colson has written 20 books, which have collectively sold more than five million copies, and his 4-minute daily radio commentary, BreakPoint, has been a popular daily word for Christians.

 Influence in the Political Arena

His 1987 his book Kingdoms in Conflict (updated in 2007 as God and Government) was a best-selling directive to the Christian community on the proper relationships of church and state, and it positioned Colson as a centrist evangelical voice for balanced Christian political activism. (Pat Robertson’s presidential run made the original release of Kingdoms) a big hit. That influence continued over the next 20 years, often behind the scenes. 

 In Faith in the Halls of Power, Michael Lindsay writes that Colson is the evangelical “movement leader who seemed to have the greatest influence” in Washington. More than a quarter of the senior political leaders he interviewed mentioned Colson by name when asked about the “most influential” evangelical leaders, more than the SBC’s Richard Land or Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins (no one mentioned James Dobson).[1]

 Seeking Christian Unity

Colson’s commitment to the unity of the Church led to his co-authorship (with Father Richard John Neuhaus) of a cutting-edge document “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” that significantly helped to build an important bridge between Protestants and Catholics.  Seeking  commonality with the orthodox Christian faith and working to bring the church together is perhaps Colson’s most courageous and controversial act, with a number of conservative evangelicals at least privately critical of his actions, and many publicly dismissive of the ECT initiative. Colson’s book The Faith was a remarkable effort to identify the common tenets of the Christian faith. 

 In recognition of his work, Colson received the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1993, donating the $1 million prize to Prison Fellowship. Colson’s other awards have included the Humanitarian Award, Dominos Pizza Corporation (1991); The Others Award, The Salvation Army (1990); several honorary doctorates from various colleges and universities (1982-2000); and the Outstanding Young Man of Boston, Chamber of Commerce (1960).

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[1] Lindsay, D. Michael. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. Oxford University Press. 2007.

Good morning.

1. Continuing to work through the meaning of the Transfiguration.
2. Sort of a better moustrap.
3. Mr Obama, losing the pretentious demographic? I don’t think so, to where else might they turn their stuck up noses?
4. Stopping that pesky terrestrial rotation.
5. Addiction.
6. The problem with objecting to zoning the basis of “its offensive” is that … it is indeed the rightful basis of zoning. We don’t have industrial warehouses and residential houses mixed for exactly that reason, not to speak of bars and schools.
7. Are you one of the lucky?
8. Of love and marriage.
9. A (non-religious) conversion noted.
10. Talking about English and Orthodoxy.

Ann had an interesting meme post which I noticed today, the “Ann Rice” meme. This meme asks us to:

1. Name 3 things that really annoy you about church in general.
2. Name 3 reasons why you stay.

So, without further ado: here’s my list.

Annoyances

1. When Christians make references to “those sinners” with a tacit assumption that “they” are not us. That is having the hubris to make the claim that there are groups and categories more sinful in the sight of the Lord than any group that includes me.
2. That the “the road is narrow and the path is steep” doesn’t mean that there isn’t more than one road. It means that the getting there is difficult.
3. How often we fail to treat other Christians as our brother and to love those who hate us.

Things Keeping me there:

1. The Creator created, the tomb was empty, and the Spirit descended.
2. Those times in which we succeed to treat Christians as our brother and to love those who hate us.
3. The stories and writings of those who it seems before us did manage well to trod that narrow path.

From the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia:

In 711 AD, a Muslim army from North Africa had conquered Visigoth Christian Iberia. Under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign. The Iberian Peninsula was called Al-Andalus by its Muslim rulers. When the Umayyad Caliphs were deposed in Damascus in 750, the dynasty relocated to Córdoba, ruling an emirate there; consequently the city gained in luxury and importance, as a center of Iberian Muslim culture.

Once the Muslims conquered Iberia, they governed it in accordance with Islamic shariah law. Christians and Jews were treated as dhimmis or "protected" persons subject to a poll tax allowing them to live in peace and security under the Islamic state. Under shariah, blasphemy against Islam, whether by Muslims or dhimmis, and apostasy from Islam are all grounds for the death penalty.

Though four Christian basilicas and numerous Christian monasteries mentioned in Eulogius’ martyrology remained open, the Christian population was gradually becoming converted to Islam in the process driven by taxation, legal discrimination and other indignities imposed on the Christians, and the marriage laws assuring Muslim offspring from mixed marriages. Notably Reccafred, Bishop of Córdoba, taught the virtues of toleration and compromise with the Muslim authorities, which did nothing to slow the process. To the scandal of Eulogius, whose texts are the only source for these martyrdoms, and who was venerated as a saint from the 9th century, the bishop sided with Muslim authorities against the martyrs, whom he regarded as fanatics. The closures of monasteries begins to be recorded towards the middle of the 9th century. The monk Eulogius encouraged the martyrs as a way to reinforce the faith of the Christian community. He composed tractates and a martyrology to justify the self-immolation of the martyrs, of which a single manuscript, containing his Documentum martyriale, the three books of his Memoriale sanctorum and his Liber apologeticus martyrum, was preserved in Oviedo, in the Christian kingdom of Asturias in the far northwestern coast of Hispania. There the relics of Saint Eulogius were translated in 884.

Cordoba refers to a time of ascension of the Caliphate and conquest, especially conquest of Christians.  Today, writing in The Ottawa Citizen, two Muslims, Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah, condemn the idea of building an Islamic mosque very near to Ground Zero, to be built by "The Cordoba Initiative".

New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it’s not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

The Koran commands Muslims to, "Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book" — i.e., Jews and Christians. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of "fitna"

So what gives Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the "Cordoba Initiative" and his cohorts the misplaced idea that they will increase tolerance for Muslims by brazenly displaying their own intolerance in this case?

Do they not understand that building a mosque at Ground Zero is equivalent to permitting a Serbian Orthodox church near the killing fields of Srebrenica where 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered?

There are many questions that we would like to ask. Questions about where the funding is coming from? If this mosque is being funded by Saudi sources, then it is an even bigger slap in the face of Americans, as nine of the jihadis in the Twin Tower calamity were Saudis.

Legally, I’m sure they have a right to build it.  But their actions belie their stated intentions. 

Meanwhile, a church actually destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, still has roadblocks before it can be rebuilt.

Well, mid-to-late morning (I’m running a bit late) … but have a good day nevertheless.

1. What those living in freedom don’t remember.
2. School days.
3. Taxi licenses and no good deed goes unpunished.
4. Forest fires and politics.
5. Our Administration, pushing lower efficiencies to save jobs? Let’s go back to all living on one horse farms.
6. A blogging meme and the institutional Church.
7. Two useful sites noted for the Orthodox in our midst.
8. On the modern marriage culture.
9. Liberal vs Conservative and its (non) relevance for the church.
10. A photo essay from the Ukraine.
11. Mr Krugman and an argument applied now that was conveniently not present during the healthcare debate.
12. One of the leading evangelical atheist bloggers neatly skewered, although that seems to be a bit like shooting ducks in a barrel.
13. Of computer games and protein science.

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

45.  Os Guinness. Modern de Tocqueville  b.1941

 As a European visitor to the United States and a great admirer but somewhat detached observer of American culture today, Os Guinness stands in the long tradition of outside voices who have contributed so much to America’s ongoing discussion about the state of the union.

Great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, Os was born in China in World War II where his parents were medical missionaries (and where his siblings died of illness). He was named Oswald after Oswald Chambers, a friend of his parents. A witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with his family and many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe–where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford.

Guinness is a Christian cultural critic with deep theological awareness and penetrating insights into character, social interaction, historic lessons, and unyielding devotion to God. He has written or edited more than twenty-five books, including The American Hour, Time for Truth, The Call, Invitation to the Classics, Long Journey Home, and Unspeakable: Facing up to the Challenge of Evil. His latest book, The Case for Civility was published by HarperOne in January 2008.

“Civility,” Guinness says, “ is how we must live with our deep differences. It’s the American way as described by James Madison, with no state church and no religious monopoly. The framers [of the U.S. Constitution] got religious liberty right with the First Amendment in 1791, long before they got race or women right. However, the way the founders set the country up has been breaking down since the 1960s, or really since the Everson case in 1947. We have incessant cultural warring with, as Richard Neuhaus put it, the sacred public square on one side and the naked public square on the other. Both of the sides are well funded, both employ batteries of lawyers, both are nationally led and it’s a disaster for America. What Neuhaus and others call the “civil public square” is a key to the American future; Christians should be champions of that civil public square.”[1]

Guinness is perhaps best known for his writings, as a co-laborer with Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri, for his work on the Williamsburg Charter—which attempted to establish decorum in political discourse; and for his founding and leadership of the unique outreach of The Trinity Forum to leaders often untouched by traditional means.

 The Trinity Forum is:

 “a leadership academy that works to cultivate networks of leaders whose integrity and vision will help renew culture and promote human freedom and flourishing. Our programs and publications offer contexts for leaders to consider together the big ideas that have shaped Western civilization and the faith that has animated its highest achievements.”

I had the good fortune of working with Os during the start-up years of The Trinity Forum. He is probably the most gracious and gentle intellectual I have worked with (and I have worked with many, in case I needed additional reasons for humility), while at the same time Guinness also maintained intellectual rigor and British propriety. It is a blend that allows you to establish a warm friendship with him, appreciate his everyday brilliance, and yet never become overly chummy. To have it any other way would negate his unique character.

 Years after I worked with Os, when I was going through a difficult personal time, he was one of the few friends and certainly the only Christian leader who called me to offer encouragement to my spirit and solace to my soul. He was self depreciating and assured me that I was not alone in any wrongdoing. It is the kind of kindness one never forgets.

 Guinness lives with his wife Jenny in McLean, Virginia.

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[1] http://www.faithandleadership.com/multimedia/os-guinness-civility-the-public-square

James Taranto notes that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia basically predicted the ruling against Prop 8 in California.  Judge Walker, in this decision, cited, among other things, Lawrence v. Texas which struck down state laws criminalizing consensual sodomy.  "It’s just personal behavior", was the argument from those trying to get those laws overturned.  The Supreme Court justices themselves, who wrote the opinion in Lawrence successfully overturning the state laws, said that the Lawrence case "does not involve" the issue of same-sex marriage.

Scalia essentially called that disingenuous in his dissent.

Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is "no legitimate state interest" for purposes of proscribing that conduct, and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), "[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring," what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution"? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case "does not involve" the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court.

Same-sex marriage is not the first step on some slippery slope.  It is, for some, the destination; the result of supposedly innocuous rulings that have come previously which laid a foundation that backers, including liberals on the Supreme Court, claimed had nothing to do with same-sex marriage. 

This is how they remake society; by lying to you until such time as they’ve built up enough steam, by whatever means necessary, to force through what they ultimately want.  This destination has been predicted for some time; Scalia’s prediction came in 1986.  He (nor I) could believe that the liberals on the bench were that stupid as to not know what they were doing.  It was, and is today, not so much about the law as it is about the politics for them. 

Also, Scalia’s prediction was not "fear mongering"; it was an honest conclusion drawn based on an understanding of the law and its ramifications.  Neither it is "fear mongering" to suggest that this destination is itself not final, but simply a stopping point on the way to who knows where else.  One simply has to look at history, even just recent history, to know that.  After same-sex marriage, the Netherlands began giving civil unions to unions of 3 or more in 2005.  And in 2004:

Tucker Carlson, host of CNN’s "Crossfire", debated with Human Rights Campaign President Cheryl Jacques on the polygamy issue. Carlson asked her why shouldn’t polygamists be able to marry and all she could say was, "I don’t approve of that."

Jacque was pushing for same-sex marriage, but figured it would all just stop in its tracks right there, because she didn’t approve of it.  I’ve got news for you:  jokes about "boogetymen", trying to ignore this history and the considered opinions of law scholars much smarter than they or I, display an ignorance and dismissiveness that belie a facade of thoughtful consideration.

In 1986, few people who argued against sodomy laws thought that it was any more than a privacy matter.  They were naive and/or misguided.  Those who think today that the debate over what is marriage will be done once we have same-sex marriage are equally naive and misguided.  But they will have less of a reason to claim, down the line, that they couldn’t have had an idea what would come of it.  Willful blindness will be the only explanation.

Scalia was right.  Remember that.

Wow.  Don Sensing offers up a philosophical discussion, but a very readable one, about what makes marriage, marriage.  It really is a very good read.  His conclusion is, in essence, that the same-sex-marriage proponents are trying to take the results of marriage and turn them into the definition of it.  But in reality, marriage is what marriage has always been; a male-female relationship.

But if you think I’ve spoiled the ending, don’t worry.  It’s getting there that is very instructive.

Read. The. Whole. Thing.

Good morning.

1. Canine stuff and more here. Our new puppie, Sophie, is 3 months old today.
2. But puppy-cide? 
3. It seems to me this is a good argument against government involvement, as when rationing occurs, it seems “ability to pay” is one of the fairest ways of deciding who gets what instead of a lottery mixed with “who has political connections” with the party in power.
4. Crunch.
5. Zoooooom.
6. Stupid tourist tricks.
7. Up in the air.
8. What we celebrate today.
9. A revolt on ICE.
10. Keep using the word “unexpectedly” and it shouldn’t be unexpected if there is no confidence in government economic meddling.

Glenn Reynolds notes, there’s that word again.

Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Climb to Three-Month High

More Americans than projected filed applications for unemployment insurance last week, indicating firings remain elevated as the recovery moderated.

Initial jobless claims climbed by 19,000 to 479,000 in the week ended July 31, the most since April and exceeding the highest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits dropped, while those getting extended payments rose.

And there’s talk of more and more bailouts, because hey, they’ve worked so well so far, eh?  Eighteen months and billions upon billions of dollars later, this is the Obama economy.  Inheriting a mess is one thing; making it worse is your own doing.