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Send General Joab to Afghanistan

30-Jul-10

The Bible tells the story of a man named Sheba and his confederates who rebelled against King David (2 Sam 20:1-22).  David’s forces under Joab defeated the rebellion, then Joab went after Sheba personally.  Sheba fled to a distant city called Abel of Beth-maachah with Joab in hot pursuit.  Upon arriving, Joab’s army began battering down the city wall to get their man.  A woman interceded with Joab for her city, and Joab agreed to spare the city if Sheba’s head were thrown over the city wall.  The head minus its body soon appeared, and the city was saved.

Right after 9-11, Mr. Bush said the United States would no longer distinguish between terrorists and governments that harbor them.  That might have been effective counsel had we followed it.  The war in Afghanistan might have ended in weeks had we identified the terrorists and Al Queda members we wanted, explained to the inhabitants of the region a clear choice: Deliver these and you’ll live.  Shelter them, and you’ll all die when we come after them.  You’re never quite sure what people will do, but the Taliban were never a popular movement in the region as Time magazine is showing this week.  I’m guessing that in something less than nine years, the population would have delivered up Osama and all his minions.

As General MacArthur famously said, “In war, there is no substitute for victory.”  The post-World War Two concept of nation-building doesn’t work unless the entire enemy population is so thoroughly defeated in its mind and national spirit that they are eager to accept anything their conquerors say as a condition of peace.  The Afghans and some of their Pakistani allies aren’t there yet, and if the horrors of the Taliban didn’t prepare them for it, the current American approach certainly won’t.

Another American general, William Tecumseh Sherman, noted that “War is hell.”  And it is.  It’s killing and maiming, it’s collateral damage and cities ablaze, it’s orphans and starving widows, it’s your own “victorious” young men and women coming back home dead, wounded, crippled, many mentally destroyed, some guilty of unspeakable crimes.  That’s what war is every time.  If your cause is not worth doing this, then skip the middle step and accept whatever it means not to fight.  In our case, that would have meant leaving the crimes of September 11, 2001 unavenged.  To a limited extent, that’s in fact what has happened.  Osama bin Laden and some of his henchmen are still alive.  Thousands of Afghans and Americans are dead, and we still haven’t evened the score with them.

Ho Chi Minh and his successors taught America an important lesson that we have yet to learn.  If your nation doesn’t have the stomach to pay the price of real victory, then you shouldn’t take on people who do.  America should either kill all the Taliban and Al Queda by any means necessary or else embrace defeat.  After nine years, it’s time to finish this business once and for all.  Killing and dying to maintain one more year of stalemate with these savages is equal parts madness and stupidity.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Did anyone… ANYONE doubt this would happen?

28-Jul-10

No matter what a law says, no matter what its basis, liberals can always shop a federal judge somewhere who will decree the leftist viewpoint.  That’s what has happened to the Arizona law that makes it illegal to be an illegal alien in Arizona.

This judge was first recommended to the feddle bench by Republican John Kyl, nominated by Democrat Bill Clinton, and confirmed by the Republican Senate in 2000.  And now you have one more reason to recognize that solution to too many Democrats is not more Republicans.

You can read the text of the decision here.  The decision hinges on the notion of “irreparable harm” coming to the United States if Arizona laws preempt federal law.  The judge assumed, without saying so, that if Arizona has a law on a subject where the federal government has jurisdiction, then the principle of federal preemption has been nullified.  This goes against the supremacy clause and so is unconstitutional, she said.

The flaw in her argument is that the Arizona law does not preempt federal law, but rather is subordinate to it and complements it.  Arizona did not take to itself the ability to judge matters of immigration or deportation, only to make the arrest if an illegal alien is detected.  Once the arrest is made, the person is given into federal custody.  Hence, there is no preemption at all.  The judge is, to be as charitable as possible, mistaken on this point.

The only fair construction that can be put on this decision is that states may not take action which has the effect of pressuring the feds to do their job.  If Arizona arrested a few thousand invaders and turned them over to the Department Homeland Security, then DHS would have to DO something with them.  If it deported them, that would enact conservative policy.  It’s hard to resist the suspicion that preventing that outcome is the driving force behind this poor decision.  If DHS did NOT deport them, then the government would be politically vulnerable and might open itself up to a lawsuit from Arizona.  Thus the judge has, in effect, stated that Arizona’s only recourse in the face of massive dereliction by the feds is to use its congressional delegation to plead for redress.  The state itself is forbidden to deploy any enforcement powers — even if those powers were expressly subservient to federal authority.

By the way, there are many state laws which address areas where the federal law has jurisdiction.  Many kinds of illicit drugs, for example, are illegal under both state and federal laws.  The feds have never argued for preemption in those cases.  They should not be allowed to get away with arguing for preemption in this case, either.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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0110 – 0110 – 0110, RFID of the Beast

25-Jul-10

The Bible makes a remarkable prediction about the shape of political and economic matters at the end of the age.  Rev 13:16-18 foretells a time when a government will seek to control all economic activity in the world by setting a mark on each individual.  Participation in commerce of any kind will require having the mark.  The mark, says John, will involve the number 666.

There has been no end of speculation about the meaning of the 666.  I can’t unravel that particular mystery for you.  With the advent of modern technology, one possible way the mark might be applied is through radio frequency identification, or RFID.  This isn’t a new thought, by the way.  Prophecy students have been saying this for many years since these things were invented.  It’s just that it’s looking ever more plausible.  The Wall Street Journal is featuring an article today (7/25/10) about Wal-Mart’s plan to use RFIDs on clothing in its stores, and Scientific American has posted an article echoing WSJ’s attention on the subject and explaining a bit more about them.

RFIDs keep getting smaller and eventually will become dot-sized things you could, for example, simply print onto the tag of a new garment.  You won’t notice them.  But if you pick up or wear an RFID marked garment, the retailer can track you wherever you go in the store.  If they mark you with an RFID, people with a transceiver can drive by your house and tell whether you’re home or not.  If personal information is contained in the RFID, they could access that too.  The implications for privacy and civil liberties could hardly be more profound.  But this technology is coming.  It’s too cheap and too potent for the commercial world to not use it.  You can be certain the government will follow.  It’s easy to imagine the justifications.  Suppose every major part of a car were imprinted with an RFID.  Car thieves could be identified as they drive down the street – - even if the car were cut to bits in a chop shop and the thief kept only one little part.

So is this the mark of the beast?  I don’t know.  But I know the Bible warns about such things on two levels.  There’s a practical level where we need to be alarmed about government’s never-ceasing hunger for information about and control of its citizens.  This is a mega-force that devours freedom in great gaping chunks in exchange for relieving people of the obligation to fend for themselves as adults.  And there’s a religious level where government tries to function as a surrogate deity, demanding not just submission but outright worship.  If you think worship of the state is a long way off, you just haven’t been paying attention.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Civilization without God is unworthy of the name

24-Jul-10

Peter Hitchens gives an account of what people become when God is expunged from their lives.  Visiting two cities, Moscow under the Soviets and Mogadishu under the Moslems, made him realize the surpassing value of Christianity’s influence on civil society in the West, an influence we are in jeopardy of losing.  Read his excellent article here.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Infancy (Heb 5)

23-Jul-10

Infants can’t handle much in the way of food.  Milk is about their limit, though they’re very demanding about getting it on time.  They have to grow and mature before they’re ready for steak and french fries.

The Hebrew writer calls his audience “babes” because they need to be taught certain doctrines of the Scripture.  He lists these in the beginning of chapter 6 as baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection, and eternal judgment.  I won’t analyze the list any further than to say that many Christians cannot give a coherent account of Christian truth concerning any one of these doctrines, let alone all of them.

It’s worth noting that many preachers never speak on any subject other than the Gospel.  I do not subtract anything from the significance of the Gospel by saying this.  It’s a fact, however, that the Bible addresses subjects other than the Gospel, and if we would know the whole counsel of God, we need some familiarity with these other subjects.  It’s a mistake to think that teaching people the Gospel alone will connect them with everything they ought to know about their Lord.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Moratorium

22-Jul-10

The Obama administration has halted oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for several months, long enough to financially destroy many whose livings depend on it.  Now they’re talking about a similar moratorium on lobster fishing, this one for several years, plenty long enough to financially destroy another whole class of Americans.  This comes on the heels of wiping out lots of car dealerships and a concerted (so far unsuccessful) attempt to kill off whole sections of the energy industry.

So far the only people whose livings Mr. Obama would like to destroy are people who actually work at producing and selling things — in other words, the real economy.  No word about a moratorium on bureaucrats issuing rules that obstruct the lives of Americans.  No, the parasitic part of the economy will keep right on going unmolested.

How about we have a moratorium on lawyers filing suits?  Or here’s a good one: how about a moratorium on hanging up new traffic lights?  Or one even better, a moratorium on the feds doing take-overs of anything.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

20-Jul-10

The Energy Information Administration has reported back to Congress on the economic fallout expected from the energy bill.  Here’s the nuts and bolts:

ACESA increases the cost of using energy, which reduces real economic output, reduces purchasing power, and lowers aggregate demand for goods and services. The result is that projected real gross domestic product (GDP) generally falls… GDP losses in 2030, the last year explicitly modeled in this analysis, range from $104 billion to $453 billion (-0.5 to -2.3 percent)…

The bill is a train wreck.  Congress needs to dump this thing.  No bill is better than this bill.  I’m getting nostalgic for a now-dead era when our government thought it was a good idea to encourage prosperity.  Now the Democrat-dominated Congress is bent doing things that wreck the economy.  Whether it’s from stupidy or malice is all the same to people whose jobs vanish because of misbegotten policies in Washington.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Huge for solar panels, that is

19-Jul-10

The Communist Chinese People’s Daily On-Line has published a puff piece about a reportedly “huge” solar voltaic generating station in Shanghai.  They claim it’s the world’s largest of its kind, which is undoubtedly true.  The plant is a mite over 6 MW — roughly 8,000 horsepower if you prefer old fashioned English units.  That’s big for a solar plant, but it won’t make a blip on the power needs a city the size of Shanghai.  It would run the air conditioning in a couple of high rise office buildings if you’re needing some sense of scale.  It’s not nothing, but compared to the size of Shanghai (see photo)… yeah, it’s about like nothing.

In China, as we’re weary of being reminded,  everything is done on a mammoth scale.  So I guess you’d rather expect them to have the world’s biggest solarvoltaic plant.  But as is typical of these things wherever you find them, this is less than dinky compared to the problem it seeks to solve.  A typical U.S. power plant fired by coal or natural gas is 900 MW, or 150 times bigger than the new “huge” solar plant.  What counts for a big mover in the power business is 1200 MW or more (1.6 million horsepower), which is 200 times the size of this solar plant.

Even in China where the government can order stuff like this by the decree of some committee of party officials, this is an economic bust.  Green gadgets remain T-ball solutions to a major league problem.  Environmentalists, we’re trying to be on your side, and all of us want to see totally smoke-free energy, but so far the energy doodads being suggested to the worldwide public are just not serious offers.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Cocaine story

18-Jul-10

Frank* was divorced and a deputy in a Southern, rural county.  His marital status occasioned an interest in meeting women, and his occupation occasioned the occasion of meeting women.  Not all the women he met were good ones.  By and by he selected Delores from his informal harem of sleazy redneck women, and Frank and Delores plighted their troth to one another before a magistrate judge in the local farm town.

Frank and Delores were grifters — ineffective ones.  They’d spend more on gas driving to a free meal than the meal was worth.  Their greatest financial conquest was a used single-wide trailer house which, until it burned to the ground, was located beside a pond on a couple of acres of semi-swamp.  Bill collectors were always calling, including ones who held title to the trailer.  Their one little nasty boy played not far from the front door of the trailer and usually not far from nekkid.  Not long after DeFaCS came visiting to inquire about their son’s attire, the trailer caught fire and burned to the ground.  That’s typical for trailers; you can’t put out a trailer house fire.  Frank and Delores moved a couple of miles away which, to the relief of all, was in a different county.  My memory fails me as to what sort of house they moved into, but it could not have been anything remotely middle class.

By and by some family sought to do them good, a project which always reminds me of a quotation from Thoreau’s Walden, “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”  The plan was settled that Delores should go to the nearby college and become a nurse.

I am passing over several years of very entertaining grifting to cut to the substance of what happened next.  Suffice to say that Delores did indeed graduate from nursing school, and to the surprise and relief of all, she passed her state board exams and became a registered nurse.  Soon thereafter, she landed a job at a local hospital, and Frank and Delores soon had more money than they had ever dreamt could exist.  Frank happily cashed her checks for her and began to build the three of them a house.  Life was looking good.

Then Delores lost her job at the hospital.  It was never disclosed to the family exactly what went wrong, although it became clear later on what the most likely scenario had been.  Whatever the circumstances were, Delores became socially radioactive in the local medical community, so she applied for a job at one of the county’s largest employers, the state prison.  She became the prison nurse.

It was in the prison that Delores became first acquainted with the glories of cocaine.  I’ve read that there are addictive personalities, and that people whose brains are hard-wired like that will get hooked on whatever they happen to dabble in.  And then I’ve read that there are characteristics of brain chemistry that make some individuals incapable of refusing cocaine once they’ve tried it.  I couldn’t say which is true, maybe neither.  Whatever the case, Delores soon began cashing her own checks.  The house building project stopped, and Frank began to hear scuttlebut at the sheriff’s office that Delores was up to no good out at the prison.  I suspect he knew it was true.  If anyone on earth knew Delores’ character, it was Frank, and that gave him no reason to doubt the worst rumors.

The rumors wafted here and there until the warden ordered a for-cause drug test for Delores, and she was fired on the spot.  He told her he was doing her a favor by not having her car searched, which he could have, and told her to get the H out of there, like, forever.

Delores didn’t go home, at least not to Frank and her boy.  She vanished.  Frank was a deputy and thought finding her would be a normal piece of law enforcement work, but she hid effectively enough that she evaded detection for something like six months.  Frank really didn’t catch up to her until she landed in a mental institution in the same state.  Apparently there are lists of people committed, and she showed up on the list. Word came to Frank through his law enforcement connections, and he tried to call her there.  At first they refused to let him speak to her, but being a little familiar with the law, he challenged them as to whether she was being held against her will.  Minutes later she was on the phone.

I was never privy to everything that was said in their conversation.  One can imagine that she admitted she freaked out on drugs enough that local law enforcement had gotten involved.  In their state, somebody had to convince a judge that she was a danger to herself or others, so probably something was said about that.  But when the conversation turned to her coming back home, Frank told people who told me that she refused to return.  She had a new life, and it was about cocaine.

Delores dropped out of sight again for several months before Frank decided to go see her in person and plead with her to come back to their partly-done house, to his meager income as a deputy, and to their son.  It took quite a bit of detective work before he was able to locate her.  He knocked at the door of a slummy duplex apartment, and a man whom he did not know answered the door.  Frank showed his badge (which may have been illegal for him to do) and asked for Delores.  As the man swung the door open, Frank could see that there were several men in the apartment.  Delores appeared from the gloom, and Frank scarcely recognized her shabby, unwashed appearance.  She looked like hell, like the dumpster-diving women he’d been arresting for years as a deputy.

“What are you doing here with all these men?”

“I’m just trying to feel anything,” she said.

And with that, she shut the door and closed him out of her life.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

*Frank and Delores are not their real names.

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Priesthood (Hebrews 5)

18-Jul-10

Hebrews 5 takes up the priesthood of Jesus Christ.  From the outset it’s clear that priest has a mediatorial function — he goes between us and God on our behalf offering gifts and sacrifices for sins (v1).  The tacit subtext is that a thrice-holy God cannot accept such things directly from sinners and rebels against his rule.

Think about this for a moment.  Suppose a convicted criminal offered the governor something in exchange for a pardon.  What would we call that except a bribe?  And the Bible says God doesn’t take bribes. (Dt 10:17)  So in order for God to be reconciled to sinners, a simple quid pro quo in which we leave something valuable on the altar in exchange for pardon won’t do.  Something of vast significance must distinguish the offering.

This, by the way, is one of the great theological failings of Islam.  Whereas the true God is “just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus” (Ro 3:26) any pardon supposedly secured under Allah is unjust — an abrogation of law.  There is no sacrifice and no mediator.  If there is any mercy at all, Allah is obliged to let the broken law stand as violated and unsatisfied, convicting himself as the ultimate unjust judge.

But God himself in the person of Christ is mediator for us and offers his own death as eternal payment for sins.  God remains holy — untouched and certainly unbribed by sinners — while the austere claims of his just law are fully met in the body of our divine Substitute.  Thus the whole transaction in which men are saved takes place out of reach of man.

And consider this: The only thing fallen man contributed to our Lord’s Passion was the sin that stalked him, betrayed him, scourged him, crucified him, and mocked him while he died.  All that was holy, just, and good, all that was mediatorial, priestly, and compassionate was furnished by God, and God alone.

Under the Mosaic code, the priests offered sacrifices for their own sins.  Christ, the Sinless One, had no need of doing so.  Hence, the Old Covenant set forth its own inadequacy.  A priest who had to offer for himself was — guess what? — just another sinner.  A mediator who can actually save sinners must therefore be not just one more rebel from the tribe of rebels, but rather one who partakes of their flesh and yet who brings to his office the kind of perfection God requires.  And he must offer for sins something better than the blood of bulls and goats which can never take away sins. Instead, he offered himself before God, a perfect payment of a perfect Lamb presented to a perfect God by a perfect priest.  No wonder, then, that there is no salvation in any name except that of Jesus Christ, the one perfect Savior for the fallen race of man.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Thanks for nothing, Switzerland

17-Jul-10

Accused drugging/raping/pedophile Roman Polanski has been released by the Swiss.  The one consolation is that he will be staying in Europe where one is compelled to suppose that such things are better tolerated.  You have to wonder what the motives of the Swiss might have been.  What is this guy to them?  On the other hand, America has been badgering Swiss banking institutions for information on accounts secretly held by Americans.  Was this a payback?

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Islam

17-Jul-10

Islam has constituted itself the mortal enemy of my God, my country, and my liberty.  It has a religious motive which it cannot permanently compromise.  Peace is possible only if they get redeemed or we get conquered.  Placing a mosque at the site of the World Trade Center is an act of conquest celebrating the worst suicide/massacre ever committed on American soil.  The same is true of the (now slightly disguised) crescent memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where flight 93 crashed as its passengers heroically resisted Islamic killers.

Thank God for the doctrine of sovereign election and irresistible grace.  Otherwise, how could the poor Moslems ever come to know Truth?  Where Moslems rule, they slay Truth’s ambassadors as soon as the appear.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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Holy-gram preaching

17-Jul-10

A new trend emerging in urban megachurches is preaching via high definition video.  The preacher isn’t actually there.  It may not even be a live video link but a recording made some other time.  The CNN article linked here says some are even using holograms.  The preachers doing this see it as a way to extend their reach without having to be physically present or bear the cost of new buildings.

But the church is more than a place to download data about Jesus.  You can do that on a blog, right?  Church is a place to enjoy brethren, receive inspiration, moral challenge and accountability, and above all, to join together in worship.  For many Christians, the pastor is a friend, the guy who demonstrates the faith for them in real flesh-and-blood living.  And Paul says that’s a pastor’s duty so his progress in the faith will be evident to everyone.  (1 Tim 4:15)  If ministry needed to be done life-to-life in 64 A.D., then what about now?  Ministerial remoteness is the last thing we need for a generation of people who text each other while sitting at the same dinner table.

Hebrews 10:24 says we’re supposed to be “provoking” one another to love and good deeds.  Obviously a blogger can’t be totally against doing that by wire, but hey, I do attend an actual church now and then.  If people begin to view themselves as spiritual flash drives and the church as a USB port, then the whole thing about fellowship vanishes and the transformation is finalized in which Christianity degenerates into spectacle.  And at that point, genuine Christianity is stone dead even if the buildings are packed.

A second concern is harder to explain and revolves around the antiquated notion of worldliness.  The Bible teaches that the vast realm of people without Christ has its own way of doing life.  Christless people naturally tend to worship idols of every sort including (and especially) remotely located media stars.  In the case of movie or rock stars, the remoteness is a necessary component of worship because the persons themselves are often such loathesome, degraded specimens of lechery and grunge.  Who could miss from the latest trash news about Lindsey Lohan or Mel Gibson?  As Ravi Zacharias often points out, evil-as-entertainment is fun to watch and gossip about, but real evil in your own household is enraging, heartbreaking, soul-crushing.  We are drawn to the spectacle but cannot endure it up close, which is why we tend to pick idols that are pretty and wicked but then keep them at arm’s length and ignore what they say.

The worldly pattern is so pervasive it’s easy to miss: an exalted stage act connecting spectators to an attactive but inaccessible star.  It is almost everywhere in America.  The local Murphy station has TeeVee screens over the gas pumps where the programming is about athletes and actors.  When pastors copy this by virtual preaching, it sure looks a lot like the church aping Hollywood.

Hollywood, of course, is mostly just a technologically amped-up version of the old Greek system of gods and goddesses.  Recall they pretty much had their gods all over the place, too.  (Acts 17:16)  The potency of the Greek system consisted not only in it heavy-handed ubiquity, but also in its insight into the fallen nature of man.  The Greek deities were outwardly beautiful, powerful, randy to the max, all of which the sinful heart craves — to be beautiful, powerful, adored, and to be able to gratify lust with no fear of judgment.

No, I’m not saying the church has converted Jesus into Zeus with its preachers into a menagerie of lesser deities.  But the church is, I think, unwittingly beginning to arrange its public worship in that pattern — remote ministers who begin to look and act like rock stars, whose presence on a stage is attended by technological whizbangery, who are followed by hordes of detached congregants who don’t honestly know them and so take nothing they say seriously.  At length, the minister becomes a psychological projection screen with “Jesus” as the purely imaginary proxy for the desires of a fallen race.

We shouldn’t have to learn this again, but the notion of reaching people — so goes the modern version of the ancient cliché — “where they are at” can be a hazardous thing.  Because “where people are at” is rushing down the broad way that leads to destruction and loving every minute of it.  It’s a tricky business to get near enough to the wicked and the damned so they can hear the voice of the Gospel without getting on that broad road yourself.  Virtual preaching in the church, I venture to forecast, will eventually prove to be a step too far.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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State-run media

13-Jul-10

Rush Limbaugh has been effectively lampooning the mainstream media for quite a while by referring to them as the “state-run media.”  Now the venerable Wall Street Journal has published a piece from Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University,  advocating government subsidies for mainstream media. Full disclosure: Bollinger’s bio says he’s a director of the Washington Post corporation, so if his proposal were accepted, some of your money would be going into his pocket.

Actually, he doesn’t call his pets “mainstream media,” but that’s what he’s talking about.  He’s certainly not advocating a hike in his taxes to support my blog.  No, it’ll be t’other way around if he gets his way.

Actually, news reporting is doing just fine.  True, some old media like the New York Times are committed to Jurassic leftism and are losing readers and money fast.  Nobody wants to read their old Soviet stuff any more.  If they want to keep printing it, fine, but they need to do it on their own dime like Jack Chick printing comic book Gospel tracts.  That’s the way free enterprise is supposed to work.  If you produce something people are willing to pay for, they will.  The freeness of the market is supposed to protect us from the gangster government forcing us to support opinions we oppose.

The subtext of Bollinger’s article is that the public (the people who have the money Bollinger wants) is too dumb to know what is in its own interest.  So Bollinger proposes what leftists everywhere reflexively propose: a government take over.  He wishes to control what you read by taking away some of your money and seeing to it that your brain gets a steady diet of state-approved doctrine.  I wonder if Bollinger is capable of comprehending that the beliefs underlying this very article are exactly why the old media are dying out.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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China says another round of recession coming

12-Jul-10

The People’s Daily says the Shanghai stock market is indicating that a “double dip” recession is now inevitable.  Check it out.  Among their audacious claims is that the Dow follows the Shanghai market.  We’ll know in a few weeks if that’s really so.

Regardless, the U.S. economy is sputtering under the threat of massive tax increases later this year in the lame duck session of Congress.  No businessman can afford to risk a big investment when he suspects his property may be confiscated by angry Democrats bent on visiting vengeance for electoral losses upon disobedient and thankless voters.  Look for increasing discussions of major tax hikes on income and capital gains, a possible value-added tax, and yet another mad dash for a cap-’n-tax energy bill aimed at transferring wealth from red states to blue.

otherbrothersteve@gmail.com

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