Political Science #1

Professor Howarth's adventures in science have become emblematic of the problems in modern science. Someone gets an idea--honestly or politically influenced--publishes a paper, that paper is universally condemned and yet the paper staggers on, zombie-like, as if nothing has happened. It is as if there was a constant torrent of information, studies, interviews, pictures and statistics showing that a one pound brick falls slower than a two pound brick or that the earth is flat.

Howarth's original research purported to show that burning natural gas emitted more carbon than burning coal. Multiple studies have been done since which refute this assertion and virtually no one believes it now. But Howarth's misinformation marches on. How can something like this happen?
Some inquires on the internet reveal some astonishing results. The Hastings Group, a professional PR firm, has been retained to publicize Howarth's original study despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Who retained the Hastings Group? Not Howarth. The Park Foundation from Ithica N.Y..

Clinton and Gingrich, Women and Men

Why is Bill Clinton viewed so harshly by men? He had an illicit relationship with a very junior subordinate and then committed perjury denying it. Men see this as a rare overlap between their political betters and them. No man in the United States in any kind of leadership position in any kind of organization would have survived that and most would have been incarcerated. That distinction--especially by the holier-than thou--rankles.

Gingrich has more personal and less legal vulnerability; whether or not he gets a similar neurological reaction from men remains to be seen.

Cab Thoughts 1/28/12

Of the data collected on disc in history, 90% has been collected in the last 2 years.

This campaign period has been just brutal. No nation should be subjected to such an intense self-serving display as these debates. It's like the Academy Awards back-to-back-to-back......on and on...A friend, responding to my objections, said, "Well, there has to be some test, some display of evidence." Yes. There must. Let's start with a polygraph.

Poor Paterno. He will be remembered for what he did not do, for what he ignored and who he did not protect. A remarkably productive and elevated life destroyed by one thing. And that is how memory works.

So much analgesics were sold in 2010 that every American could have taken 5mg of hydrocodone every 4 hours, every day of the year. 3% of all physicians prescribe 64% of all opiates.

A Harvard study on the economy recently named the two biggest problems as the IRS tax code and government inaction.

What could possibly occurred to have Johnny Depp and his girlfriend of 13 years separate? There does not seem to be any obvious factor....Oh, wait....except his recent movie ....with Angelina Jolie. But that probably doesn't mean anything.

A note on the vanishing middle class: one dollar saved in 1970 is now worth fifteen cents. For the same period the Americans have been hedging the dollar with their homes. It worked until 2007. Now they have no savings and a house worth much less.


American demographics: 47 million people are on food stamps. The number of people over 65 increased 15% in the last decade.

In the 18 games Steeler nose tackle Chris Hoke started the Steelers were 17-1. He is going to retire this week with what sounds like a significant injury.

A recent Gallop poll asking what the major problem facing the country is got greater than 50% response in the economic area (jobs, growth etc.) 2% said income disparity. That said, why would the administration make such a point of it, almost to the exclusion of the important topics?

Standin' By Their Man

A great mystery in life is the evangelical's forgiveness of divorce. One can comb the Old and New Testament for information about all sorts of failings but none seems to be repeatedly pointed out, especially by Christ in the New Testament, as much as divorce. Even the great bugaboo homosexuality doesn't get as much biblical ink. Yet the evangelical movement positively ignores it. One would think that the fundamentalists would be burning heretics in the street in celebratory bonfires extolling the monogamous Romney but no, they like the thrice divorced Gingrich. One can say that Romney is a shunned sect member but Gingrich is a Catholic convert and historically that is much worse; the South wouldn't even vote for Kennedy.

Perhaps it is a wonderful acceptance and confidence in forgiveness, the born again renewal that allows marital errors to be erased and life to start anew.

Neutering Newt

The first anti-Gingrich ad I have heard in the Northeast aired yesterday. It was very powerful. Does anyone know the ethics charges that Gingrich's opponents reference?

After winning his house seat in 1994, Gingrich was accused by his opponent of using his teaching position at the university for political purposes. This bizarre claim actually hinged on the idea of controlling costs and resources in an election campaign. If the course he was teaching was a shell for his political aims, then it would be an ethics violation. This was front page stuff for years, back and forth, with every penny--tuition cost, books--under scrutiny. Finally Gingrich gave up and signed a paper admitting that he had not consulted enough lawyers before taking the course on. He was fined 300,000 dollars--an unheard of amount for the time. He was such a lightning rod in the press his party replaced him as leader. His opponents did not stop. They tried to make a criminal charge out of it; if what he did was not ethical, they could stick him with an IRS charge. In 1999 the IRS formally cleared him. This relentless, petty attack became institutionalized and is now accepted as gospel.

Ethics questions in American politics are like brutality questions in boxing. But honest evaluations of the complaints is about the best we can do. What this means is we need a referee, an honest one. The press has not been able, so far, to rise to the level of honesty.

I am no fan of Gingrich but I am a fan of fair play.

State of the Union

The State of the Union speech was the first formal campaign speech of this long and dreadful campaign season that inexplicably is tolerated by the nation for 18 months now. Some of it was predictable: The battlefield will be over taxes on 1% of the country (who, from all indications, agree with the increase), the indefinable "fairness" concept that seems to be related to earned income but probably will mean anything and everything, and the accusation that the current economy is actually the Republicans' fault.

It is perhaps unfair to hold government officials for failure in areas they don't understand and can not control but they are volunteering. And they do not ascribe to the wise advice to physicians, "First do no harm." But the effort to deflect responsibilities for failure and disappointment on the Republicans offends at least logic.

When Obama took power he, for two years, had the largest Democratic majorities in the Senate and House since Carter. Carter. Four decades. His plans and expectations, as stated in a memo from Larry Summer to Obama in December 2008, was recently published in The New Yorker and includes the economic stimulus, bailing out the auto industry, turning housing around, and rescuing the financial industry. All of the plans became law. They just did not work. It was not that they were blocked by the Republican minority; the Republicans were powerless. The plans simply did not work. Additional laws were also passed: ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, cash for clunkers, the housing tax credit, and much more. The only Obama priority that didn't pass was cap-and-trade, which was killed by Senate Democrats.

Whether or not it is sensible to have a presidential campaign based on the tax rates of 1% of the country and an arcane "fairness' concept is certainly debatable. But whether or not Obama and his party are responsible for the legislation and the lack thereof is not.

The Church of Unintended Consequences

A few years ago there was an outburst of outrage over animal skins and furs being used by people, this in a society that allows boxing, football, Ultimate Fighting, smoking and recreational neurotoxins among a free people. One group began to throw paint on people wearing fur. I remember a woman being interviewed after she was attacked with red paint while wearing a mink. She was sputtering furious. When asked what she planned to do she paused and said, "I don't know. It's insured; I suppose I'll get another."

It is illuminating to hear farmers talk of their decisions regarding protected species. They feel that if they report a protected species nest or burrow on their property to the EPA, the EPA will commander a good proportion of the property to protect the animal and the farmer will then lose access to his own property. Consequently, if a farmer ever comes across an animal he suspects of being protected, he kills it and destroys the evidence.

So the best laid plans create the most unforeseen consequences, often the exact opposite of the plans intended result.

The Risks of Improvement

Samuelson wrote "We have only one history of capitalism. Inferences based on a sample of one must never be accorded sure-thing interpretations."

This is a statement with a lot of implications. What we have in this nation now is an accidental economic system, the product of a number of forces converging in history. Like those wonderful and creative science fiction/alternative sociological stories, this economy is one of many possibilities. But America's driving force is not Adam Smith, it is loosely fettered freedom where Adam Smith found root. There are lots of other possible systems; after a bad couple of decades should we change the framework? The Pacific Basin has a number of controlled economies with a capitalistic flavor. These Pacific nations emphasize national growth; freedom and capitalism are tools, valuable only as long as they work. There is no principle involved. It is all practicality. Should we try one of them?

There is a wonderful restlessness in man, an eagerness to do something new, to improve. The problem is what to do and, more important, who to put in charge to do it. The men who founded this country--really who revolutionized their times--were highly principled and fearful of the potential abuse of power. Is there anyone in the current political corral who has even one of those two characteristics? Is there anyone you would trust to restructure the nation?

What is the enemy of good? Better.

Sunday Sermon 1/22/12

The New Testament reading today is another one of those clever juxtapositions between God and man. God tells Jonah to walk through the sinful city of Nineveh and announce the coming of God's destructive justice. The city goes into mourning and God, impressed with their sincere contrition, decides not to destroy them. There are countless interpretations. The mercy of God is the obvious one. Many are confused by God's mercy, as if He were inconstant. It certainly is not a great biblical moment for predestination.

But the story of Jonah is bigger. And harrowing. This episode, where he hears God's words about Nineveh, is not his first one. He flees the first one, hides, takes a ship to flee the country, is lost at sea, is swallowed by "a large fish", stays in the fish's stomach for three days and is vomited up on dry land before he submits to the will of God. Then God relents and Jonah fells he has been betrayed by God, that God's word will now be slighted and that Jonas has looked like an idiot in front of the people of Nineveh. God then shelters him with ivy, then destroys the ivy and exposes Jonas to the sun, all of which makes Jonas angrier.

"Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, nor made to grow..." God says to him. Not only is God merciful but His decisions are beyond our ken and stand alone, outside our understanding and, importantly, our judgment. And, regardless of our assessment, He will have mercy on a people "that know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left". Oh, and by the way, "many beasts."

Cab Thoughts 1/21/12

Of all the horrible nonsense that has arisen to attack or defend candidates one of the more amazing has been the history of the wife of Rick Santorum, the family values entry in the race. While going to school to become a nurse, she ended up moving in with the guy in the apartment upstairs, an older and rather famous local obstetrician and one of the few city guys doing and supporting abortions. And he actually delivered her. Really going back to her roots. She lived with him for five years. He was interviewed about her recently. He is 93.

American produce CO2 at a per capita average of 17.6 tons, according to an EIA study of state-level emissions released last week. China's per capita output is 9 tons. Everyone is excited that China is beginning to grow its production and worried about the greenhouse contribution. But these numbers are bit misleading. The U.S. has an integrated energy system, China does not. What this means is that a small percentage of Chinese are using a lot of energy and a lot are not. Who will cutting back hurt? And, incidentally, who's gonna bell that cat?

The incidence of autism in children under 15 is 1% in the U.S., it is 2.4% in South Korea.

One wonders at the emphasis the press puts on these little topics like the money Romney made from his speeches or that Gingrich made from Fanny Mae. Fanny Mae is a corrupt organization; get after it if you are offended. Obama is going to raise one billion, billion, dollars to run for an office that pays, ostensibly, 400,000 dollars a year. Get after it if you think it stinks. They must just think we're morons, it's that simple.

If all the people who voted for Obama in the last election vote for him again, he will win. If he does not win, does that mean that those who voted for him in 2008 and did not in 2012 became racists during his term?

An Onion headline, "Witch Who Granted Beyonce Beauty and Fame Takes Singer's First Child", put me on the floor laughing. I relayed the headline to three women in the office and not one cracked a smile. This, like Catch 22, has become a new noninvasive Barr Body test.

The Steelers are 25 million dollars over the cap. Have the present teams been built sacrificing the future teams? Is it just like social security? Are they doomed?

There are 2500 hedge funds in the United States. Several fund managers have been arrested in the last several years. It would be interesting to know the percentage of hedge fund employees involved nationally. The rules are not always clear for these people but some of the crimes are pretty egregious. But when Paulson had lunch with some hedge fund guys and mentioned the plan to abandon Lehman, they all left lunch to call their attorneys, not their traders.

What is going on with Washington/politics/Republicans that all the candidates have wives with M.S.? So Newt dumps wife after dx. of M.S.. Now Romney's wife has M.S. too and he did not dump her. Will the antipathy to Newt become attraction to Romney? No chance.

American Fatwa

From all indications, someone or some group is killing scientist associated with the Iranian nuclear program. At least four have been murdered, the most recent by a bomb attached to the victim's car by a motorcyclist; the killer escaped. These attacks seem sophisticated and one can only wonder at their genesis.

There are a number of implications if the source of the attacks is a nation. Wars do not discriminate, usually, and collateral damage always occurs. But there is no war and these are private citizens being murdered here. Nor are they being murdered for an ideology; they presumably are being murdered for their talents. This is a true advance in society.

Most fictional accounts of time travel describe a hero trying to right a wrong in history, usually by deflecting or eliminating the actions of an antagonist to some perceived good. Sometimes there are competing perceived "good"s, like "End of Eternity" by Asimov. But rarely is the enemy in history a talented individual in a talented chain.

One might argue that these scientists are part of a dangerous movement in Iran. But so, theoretically, is their grocer. Does this really mean that nations can legitimately target any and, presumably, every participant in an opposition political movement? What about their theorist, their spokesmen? What about their thinkers? What about their artists?

Why Investing is so Hard #3

"A man alone has no goddamn chance" said Hemingway (or words to that effect.) Actually, in the world of investing, a man alone has some advantages:

*No arbitrary benchmark to meet (quarterly or monthly or in-house), so you can have longer-term time horizons and different goals
*You can enter or exit a position without impacting markets unless, of course, you are really, really rich.
*There is no public scrutiny of your holdings and no disclosures required--other than your immediate family-- so you don’t have to worry about someone taking your ideas or justify yourself to a boss or a shareholder.
*You don’t have to limit yourself to just the largest stocks or worry about position size (this is huge).
*Cost structure, fees, and taxes are within your control.
*You can reverse errors without professional consequences – you don’t get fired for admitting a mistake.
*You can have longer-term time horizons and different goals--a huge advantage.
*You know they're lying and can act appropriately.
*You can enter the start-up/angel market (although it's tricky because, of course, it's restricted)

Jack Bogle, a man from the fire who developed Vanguard, has developed a strong following. (He recently even said some positive things about the Occupy movement.) He has a rather cynical approach to investing. His followers are legion and usually well informed. In fairness, there are a lot of approaches to investing and his is popular because it opposes the "business of investing".
Generally his philosophy is this:
Develop a simple workable plan
Invest early and often
Never bear too much or too little risk
Never try to time the market
Use index funds when possible.
Keep costs low
Diversify
Minimize taxes.
Beware of people trying to sell you something.
Stay the course.

Why Investing is so Hard #2

There have been a lot of assessments of investing, a lot of evaluations and conclusions.

Remember Jeremy Seigle's book? "Stocks for the Long Haul'" compiled a lot of data from the last 200 years (the last decade excepted.) Since 1871 the annual return corrected for inflation has been: stocks 6.5-7.0%, bonds 2.8%. Generally Seigle felt that any 10 year period would show growth in value of the stock market. This is the basis for "buy and hold", the notion that markets rise in a ten year period if you just wait and not panic. Stocks were better than bonds and eventually the inherent value would be recognized in any ten year period.

BUT!
In 1982 the Japanese stock market was around 8,000 yen. In 1990 it rose to almost 40,000. This month it is about 8000. If you had bought into the Japanese anywhere in the last 20 years, you would have been slaughtered by your losses. Similarly, if you had bought at the low of 8,000 in 1982, you would be slaughtered by your stagnation and inflation.

The U.S. Dow was 11,722 in 2000 and is 12,418 now, 12 years later. That's 5.6 % increased over 12 years. That's an annualized return of 0.47%.

These are really terrible returns. Are things different? Are we in some new entity, some new paradigm? In Holland, the price of tulip bulbs is still far below what it was back in 1637, failing to come even close to recovery, after well over 350 years.

Maybe it's the same old thing, just seen with a wider lens.

Why Investing is so Hard #1

Charles Ellis said when he was overseeing the $15-billion endowment fund at Yale University:
"Watch a pro football game, and it's obvious the guys on the field are far faster, stronger and more willing to bear and inflict pain than you are. Surely you would say, 'I don't want to play against those guys!'
“Well, 90% of stock market volume is done by institutions, and half of that is done by the world's 50 largest investment firms, deeply committed, vastly well prepared – the smartest sons of bitches in the world working their tails off all day long. You know what? I don't want to play against those guys either."

Darwin once said: " Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" This actually has been given a name, The Dunning-Kruger Effect. The worse we are at any specific skill set, the harder it is for us to evaluate our own competency at it. So an investor might be terrible at investing but unable to see it. (There is an old joke where a man losing at football betting bemoans it to his bookie. The bookie suggests baseball and the bettor says "But I don't know anything about baseball".)

So not only is the average guy fighting against knowledgeable pros for a seat at the investment table, he may be very bad at investing and impaired in his self evaluation.

There are countless investing philosophies--all with some evidence of success--and countless ways to invest, not just equity and debt but countless subsets of both with new bright ideas coming all the time.

It gets worse. The business community itself has nothing but disrespect for the little guy and lies to him as often as possible. Investing companies give him annual returns rather than internal returns.(Everyone) Companies themselves lie.(Enron) Trading companies sell you one thing and then short it.(Goldman Sacks) The fee for the sale is more important than what is sold.(Everyone) Short term results are more important than long term.(Everyone) Not to mention the prominence of all the seven deadly sins displayed with confidence and pride. No one should invest a penny until he has read a few books on the dangers. A few suggestions: "When Genius Failed"(Lowenstein), "The Big Short"(Lewis) and "Fooling Some of the People All of the Time" (Einhorn) And everyone should see the HBO movie "Too Big to Fail."

It's a mess. What's a guy to do? There are some options but they are all compromises. The cynic in me looks where the average guy is limited in his ability to invest by law, the areas where the government legislates against him. Two areas stand out: Hedge Funds where the people in the company invest their own money and Start-Ups where the company is accessible from the beginning. If the government has restricted entry, there must be something to it.

Candidate: As in Candid and Candide

A recent NYT editorial summarized their objections to the current Republican agenda and opined that their philosophy was responsible for the current economic crisis. Generally the Republicans were held responsible for stagnation in the minimum wage, budget cuts, lower taxes.They do not explain how the Republicans had such influence over the last 30 years with so little success as public candidates nor do they explain why the Europeans with an opposite economic and political view ended up in the same situation as the Americans.

What seems true is the pervasive myth that the two parties are different, that their agendas are other than self perpetuation and that their public statements are somehow either sincere or misunderstood rather than a disguise, a Trojan horse to get them past the electorate's suspicious defenses.

Sunday Sermon

The readings today contain the famous Samuel story about being called by God in a dream repeatedly and not understanding that the voice was not the neighboring priest (another of the Bible's dramatic and funny episodes of confusion and misunderstanding created for a foolish humanity and scripted by an intergalactic dramatist)and John's recruitment of the early apostles, including Peter. The general story is one of God's inviting people to Him, solicitous and individual. But there is another component: While God is "the closer," the apostles are the interface. The apostles have "sampled" Christ and have gone out the population with their conclusions.

This is a profound notion because none of Christ's claims make any sense without His followers' confirmation.

A Moral Fable

While at dinner at a nice restaurant, I watched a beautiful Porsche pull up and park. An attendant got out, looked like a parking valet, and looked the parking meter over. He put in some coins, left and returned with a well dressed guy who looked like security. The two of them looked the meter over, the well dressed guy explained the meter to the valet and, I suppose, their policy and his advice. He then fed the meter and the two left. Towards desert, a meter maid pulled by, looked the car over, then the meter. She ticketed the car.

I left before the valet returned to pick the car up. I wonder how he handled it.

Tebow the Black Swan and the Dow

Anyone with the temerity to have confidence in any evaluations or assessments need look no further than the Steeler-Bronco game for disillusion. Did anyone think the over/under was more than 12? Or that Tebow would average 30 yards completion?

Remember this when thinking of betting. Or investing.

A Modest Wedding Proposal

The culture is struggling. Out with the old, in with the whatever. The postmodern respect for anything of any quality--as close as the covetous arts and social sciences can get to Heisenberg--have left us with a poor line of judgement. It has been suggested that one of the outcomes might be a resurgence of accumulation and financial success.

Funerals are the same but weddings are not. Expense, themes, productions may all validate the idea that the end of postmodernism leaves us nothing but the market. So weddings have become a flag planted in a bride's territory, the fulfillment--or destruction--of the plans of in-laws. Power struggles within and between families is the norm as each wants his plans realized. Weddings have themes; the wedding is not enough.

A modest proposal: Every young woman, lovely or not, heterosexual or not, nubile or not gets her own day, her own party at the age of twenty-five. Like a bat mitzvah, the young woman gets a day of social importance devoted only to her--no groom but male guests if she wants--the way she would plan a special day only for her. She can plan a day with a Wizard of Oz theme, Alice in Wonderland, a breakfast, a brunch, a nighttime party. A day where she is the cynosure, where her happiness and that of her family, is not just paramount, it is the only thing.

The impact would be terrific. No in-laws to please, no groom hanging around glumly, no compromises. She and her family could plan her great day from childhood. They could save for it, she could collect china outside of community property rules, she likely would delay marriage (with all the social benefits that brings) until she had her event because the event would now be primary.

My Little Debt to the Government

There has been a lot of talk about the value of education, how it is the path to the middle class and how American citizens are suffering over the cost. Obama has commented on this repeatedly. Some numbers:
Jeremy Siegle's book, "Stocks for the Long Run" compiled a lot of data from the last 200 years (the last decade excepted.) Since 1802 the annual return corrected for inflation has been: stocks 6.5-7.0%, bonds 2.8%. Generally Siegle felt that any 10 year period would show growth in value of the stock market. (Remember this for tomorrow.)

Current U.S. bond returns are: 3 month 0.01%, 6 month 0.05%, 12 month 0.01%, 2 year 0.26%, 3 year 0.39% 5 year 0.87%, 7 year 1.42 %, 10 year 1.97%, 30 year 3.01%.

85% of medical students graduate with debt averaging 160.0 thousand dollars, lawyers 106.3 thousand, teachers 18 thousand. Annually in the United States 100 billion dollars in public loans, 10 billion in private are taken for education. 65.6% of the graduates of 4 year scholastic college programs graduate with an average of 23.1 thousand in debt. The next burden, of course, is the interest rate they pay.

My school loan from the U.S. Department of Education, set by the national government, is 6.8%. 6.8%! That is equivalent to the 3 month bond of Malawi, a landlocked African nation with no natural resources, whose major product is tobacco and whose per capita income is 800 dollars a year.

So in this environment, with historically low interest rates, an emphasis on education and national concern over the cost and financing of education my government is charging me 6.8% on my education loans. This is completely under their control. This, in spite of what they say. Now how are we to reconcile that disparity?

The Queen and a Korean Observation

There is a new book out about Queen Elizabeth and it has inspired the usual anti-monarchy response. The English Royal Family is an easy outrage that never seems to extend to the real despots of the world. More recently a financial motive has crept into the argument: Can Great Britain afford them? Diana suppressed most of the complaints but, now that she is gone and the unattractive Charles has moved to the fore, the murmuring has returned.

Years ago I was in a difficult conversation with two Koreans. I speak no Korean, they spoke no English but they had a dictionary. We were struggling over the meaning of the royal family, how they were seen by the British as symbolic of the nation and we bounced synonyms off each other while one searched his dictionary. Suddenly he straightened and pointed a word out to me in his dictionary. He pronounced it slowly.
"Mascot?" he asked. "Mascot?"
"Perfect," I replied.

An Empty Bowl

New Years has always been difficult for me. There is a tension between what I see for me and what the world seems to offer so the "Sacred Arbitrary Moment", the official start of the new year, is a time of conflict. And, as I straddle the "Sacred Arbitrary Moment", I usually feel a bit more in the past than the future. I never know the entertainers on the television celebration of the "Sacred Arbitrary Moment", I never know the loud, enthusiastic and grinning hosts and hostesses. I am, once a year, officially declared behind the times.

I do, however, love the football of the holiday. This year, though, my defects were only magnified by the sports events. Hoping to sit down in front of a good game or two with the company of a child or two and comforted by a Pepsi and a bowl of potato chips I found myself watching the introduction of the Hunger Bowl. The Hunger Bowl. I'm on the couch, eating chips and hot dogs with sauerkraut and I have to watch a bowl game raising hunger awareness. Now I would have thought that have a game devoted to hunger on a day of nationally agreed self indulgence would be a bad idea.

Only further evidence of my being out of touch.

"Present"-dent

There is a story about the Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Apparently someone interested in writing an article about him went back to his school days in search of some youth pictures and found nothing. He had no graduation picture, he was absent from the club and athletic pictures--the guy had no picture record of his high school experience. When asked about this he said it was planned by him to have no record of his early life. Young guys always can be made to look silly with old styles, interests, old mistakes. He said he purposely avoided anything that in his history might detract from his music and art he knew was coming. Astonishing vision and confidence.

A track record can be bad for politicians too. Gingrich is so arrogant he is willing to say anything, anytime with the confidence he can explain it later. Obama has been specifically attacked for being noncommittal in voting "present" on important votes in an effort not to offend anyone. This issue was raised by Hilliary in the primary in 2008. It is an unfair charge. Obama voted "present" 127 times as a state senator, but that was three percent of his votes. He was absent 80% of votes running for president but McCain was absent over 70%; when you're running for president, you are little else.

But it is a strange world in which you must hide from your opinions.

Sunday Sermon 1/1/12

Today Paul to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year?