Governor Ebenezer Arnold's nightmare before Christmas, "A California Carol"
December 23, 2008 11:01 pm

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Most Americans Believe in Multiple Paths to Salvation
December 26, 2008 12:08 pm

Associated Baptist Press - A majority of American Christians believe that at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life, according to a new survey released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

This inclusive belief is common even among evangelicals, a branch of Protestant Christianity whose doctrine specifically contradicts this more inclusive view. Even in this group, a full 47 percent said many religions can lead to "eternal life."

An earlier, similar poll with similar results had been criticized by many Christians. It asked about "other religions" bringing salvation, and critics felt it implied other Christian religions. This time, the survey was more specific, naming Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam as well as "no religious faith." Still, a majority of the respondents found them to be valid paths.

About one third of Americans say one’s beliefs determine who achieves eternal life, while an equal number say it depends on one’s actions. A tenth of the population say it is a combination of belief and action. The rest say something else determines salvation, they don’t believe in eternal life or they don’t know.

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And The Women...
December 26, 2008 10:43 pm

Bob Cesca

The most admired women in America, according to Gallup:

1. Hillary Clinton 20%
2. Sarah Palin 11%
3. Oprah Winfrey 8%
4. Condoleezza Rice 7%
5. Michelle Obama 3%

Sarah Palin is second, eh? Yep, because quotes like this are so worthy of admiration:

"Uh. That thankfully our founders were wise enough to say we have this position and it's constitutional -- vice president will be able to be not only the position flexible, but it's gonna be those other duties as assigned by the president. A simple thing."

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Barack Be Good
December 26, 2008 10:52 pm

Paul Krugman

.....Goo-goo, in case you’re wondering, is a century-old term for "good government" types, reformers opposed to corruption and patronage. Franklin Roosevelt was a goo-goo extraordinaire. He simultaneously made government much bigger and much cleaner. Mr. Obama needs to do the same thing.

Needless to say, the Bush administration offers a spectacular example of non-goo-gooism. But the Bushies didn’t have to worry about governing well and honestly. Even when they failed on the job (as they so often did), they could claim that very failure as vindication of their anti-government ideology, a demonstration that the public sector can’t do anything right.

The Obama administration, on the other hand, will find itself in a position very much like that facing the New Deal in the 1930s.

Like the New Deal, the incoming administration must greatly expand the role of government to rescue an ailing economy. But also like the New Deal, the Obama team faces political opponents who will seize on any signs of corruption or abuse - or invent them, if necessary - in an attempt to discredit the administration’s program......

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Nice Work if You Can Get It
December 26, 2008 11:06 pm

Yglesias

The Washington Post takes a look at Fannie Mae’s new board. Dean Baker takes a look at the Post’s skewed priorities:

The remarkable part of this story is that the Washington Post reporter could not find a single person who thought that paying part-time workers $160,000 a year was a bad idea. There is absolutely no one cited in this piece who raised a question about the compensation levels for the board.

Keep in mind that this is a newspaper that is absolutely apoplectic over autoworkers getting $27 an hour. If we assume that the board members on average will devote 500 hours a year to their board duties, this puts their pay rate at $320 an hour.

Look, super-high salaries for the already wealthy equal necessary incentives for prosperity. Relatively high wages for the working class equals productivity destroying union malfeasance. That’s not really so hard to understand, is it?

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Once in a Century: Real Estate Financing
December 27, 2008 11:33 am

Excerpted from Bob Prechter's Elliott Wave Theorist

One of the ways that a lot of this real estate debt was financed is very unusual historically, and that is through asset-backed securities. They really came into their own in the decade of the 2000s up until 2007. A lot of people feel that such investment was normal, but it wasn’t. For years and years, housing was built essentially to provide a home for people; in other words, it was a consumption item. But in the 2000s it turned into an investment item for people other than bankers. Wall Street packaged mortgage loans and began selling them as investments to people who didn’t look very hard at what they were buying. And they didn’t feel that they had to because, again, they felt that they were covered, at least with Fannie and Freddie mortgages, by implied guarantees from the federal government.

What’s happened, though, is that the issuance of asset-backed securities has fallen nearly to zero, not far from where it started. This method of financing is abnormal and something that comes along maybe once a century, when financiers get together and figure out a way to dress up and distribute IOUs in a certain investment area. So it is very unlikely that we will be returning to this type of financing anytime soon.

If you are in the real estate business, you don’t have to feel alone. Here is a list [not shown] of celebrated money managers who in the past year have suffered tremendous losses in the stock market portfolios that they manage. As you can see, the S&P500 - when this was compiled - was down 41%, and two-thirds of these managers actually underperformed the S&P, all the way down to minus 60%. So, there is not only a real estate decline but also a stock market decline, and, as we will see in a couple of slides, we’ve also had a drop in commodities. It is very important that these markets are moving together. The last time that happened on such a scale was in the 1930s.

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Taking Command
December 27, 2008 3:01 pm

Wesley K. Clark

Actually, Democrats and the military can get along. Here's how

..... Our military is a values-based institution. Don't think of it as Republican or Democratic. Sure, occasionally someone will pop up, like the radio talk-show host I met while traveling in Arizona, who assured me that he had become a dues-paying Republican while serving as a Marine officer and thought that everyone else should, too. But most of us are uncomfortable with partisanship. True, many in the military, especially those who have served longer, lean toward the conservative end of the political spectrum. (What would you expect? The military must obey the orders of the commander in chief and follow the chain of command, which means giving up one's own liberties and spending time in difficult and often very dangerous circumstances.) But the real military values aren't partisan values; they're service, loyalty, honesty, patriotism, respect, achievement and personal responsibility.

Which brings us to one more core military value, one that Democrats can easily embrace: fairness. Military leaders take care of their troops -- and their unit's families. They don't take advantage of their authority. Captains eat after their troops do, not before. Good officers get to work earlier than their subordinates and leave later. I used to joke on the campaign trail that the Army was a socialist organization: The government owned the housing and all the equipment I worked with, everyone's children went to the same schools and used the same hospitals, and the highest-ranking person (after more than 30 years in uniform) earned only about 10 or 12 times the salary of a raw recruit. In the military, we don't like favoritism, show-boating or elitism.

That's a good base upon which to build. But Democrats must also realize that the military's respect has to be earned. We don't consider ourselves an "interest group." Sure, we will always appreciate more pay, better housing and stronger veterans' benefits. But that isn't how the Democrats will win over the military. They'll win by being straight-up, clear-eyed and professional about national security. And if they are, the military will trust them, even with a painful withdrawal from Iraq and the inevitable defense cutbacks.......

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Science of the impossible coming soon
December 27, 2008 10:54 pm

They are going to fire 192 intense lasers at a hydrogen pellet the size of pinhead to create the same fusion that occurs in the sun. If they don't destroy California, it could be the first step to harnessing fusion power which would enable our civilization to evolve more quickly in the next few centuries.

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The Slave Next Door: Child Maids Being Exported To US From Africa
December 28, 2008 4:38 pm

IRVINE, Calif. - Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door.

They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn't much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms. To put the dishes away, she climbed on a chair.

But she was not the daughter of the couple next door doing chores. She was their maid.

Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family's crystal. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. She had no breaks during the day and no days off.

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