Rules for Living

No. 213: Don't get your sports information from a lawyer, your legal advice from a pastor, or your moral instruction from a sports radio talk-show host.

Brilliant

Acquiring health insurance is a nightmare for the unemployed. COBRA, the insurance you have as a continuation of your policy in effect while you were working, costs significantly more now that you are not working. In other words, when you theoretically could afford to pay more, you paid less. When you need to pay less, you have to pay more. Brilliant.

The alternatives to COBRA, catastrophic coverage through a number of insurers, might be an option as long as you have absolutely no pre-existing conditions, no matter how minor. This makes private health insurance all but unattainable for all but the youngest and healthiest and those without dependents-precisely those who need it least.

So am I in favor of universal health care? Are you kidding? Why would I turn my healthcare over to the tender mercies of the governmet bureaucrats who make the inefficient process of applying for unemployment so utterly dehumanizing?

A Good Life

Those who expect life to be easy are bound to be disappointed. And an easy life shouldn't be the goal, anyway. Pray for a good life, not an easy one. Then, if it is easy, be thankful. If it isn't, you can still be good.

Skin Deep

The media are trumpeting the president's "historic" choice of a hispanic woman for the Supreme Court. That's all well and good, and congratulations to Judge Sotomayor (though hispanics are so mainstream it's hard to see them as an oppressed minority needing special treatment).

Aren't we supposed to be a color-blind society by now, judging people, as Dr. King famously said, "by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin"? I'd feel better if people were talking about her qualifications, philosophy, and temperament than about her sex and ethnic group. The position of high court justice is too important to be given over to an affirmative action hire.

Rules for Living

No. 229: When you're out of work, fold over your lightly used napkin and reuse it. (You need not follow this procedure with a tissue.)

Everything You Wanted in a National Security Policy. And Less.

When it comes to national security, Barack Obama is heading for the mountains. Whether it's Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, wiretapping, the Patriot Act, military tribunals, and on and on, he is doing everything President George W. Bush did. Only less.

I call it Bush lite.

No Work, Endless Work

When you have a job, you pretty much know each day when your work is over. When you lose a job, your work is never over.

More on "Lifestyle Choices"

The lower economic level you face for relying on just one income is the "lifestyle choice." The conviction to raise your children the best way you know how, by keeping a parent at home, is more than a "choice." It is an act of obedient worship and responsible parenting.

When a Norm Becomes a "Choice"

Since when did the wife staying home with the kids while the husband works become "a lifestyle choice," particularly among Christians? I'm not old, and I remember when it was the norm.

Death by Go-Kart

While bailing out most of the American auto industry, the administration is now telling carmakers that they will henceforth only be permitted to sell go-karts. That'll increase sales! Meanwhile, the taxpayers who are footing the bill for all this genius can expect to die on the highways in ever greater numbers. Well, we can't say we weren't warned.

The Worst That Could Happen

When "the worst that could happen" happens, God is still there.

A Heartbeat Away

Joe Biden apparently has just spilled the beans on a secret bunker for the vice president (himself). Remind me again why Obama chose him to be a heartbeat away.

Talk vs. Actions

It's easy for President Obama to call for respectful engagement on the sanctity of life issue when he controls all the levers of political power to advance his pro-choice convictions. So far, all his actions have served only to advance abortion on demand, and all his talk about reducing abortion has been simply that: talk. Let's see some actions that do more than simply mimic the standard liberal approach. Then we'll see whether our president really respects pro-lifers (not to mention unborn human life).

Time

Kids have no sense of time. Don't let that stop you from spending yours with them.

Best Interests

Barack Obama, notwithstanding his earlier decision to release the "torture memos," had a pretty good week when it comes to national security. Knowing he will be blamed if we have another terrorist attack, the president decided to continue the military tribunal system for terrorists, and he also decided to oppose-at least for now-the release of the interrogation photos. These decisions went back on earlier positions and dismayed his friends on the far left (which is unavoidable when you govern responsibly) but are in the best interests of the country.

Now if only he would do the same thing on the domestic front. If you want to read a chilling prediction of the European-style statism we are headed for, check out Mark Steyn's "Live Free or Die" in the April Imprimis (http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp).

Rules for Living

No. 138: Any approach to disciplining children that includes duct tape probably isn't a good idea.

Waterboarding

1. President Obama has quite sensibly changed his mind about the "enhanced interrogation technique" photos, noting that their release could harm national security. Funny how being commander in chief can change one's perspective. Now why didn't he use the same reasoning with regard to the EIT memos?

2. With regard to Nancy Pelosi's CIA briefings about waterboarding, which many of her Democratic colleagues are now calling torture: What did Speaker Pelosi know, and when did she know it?

Sweet Tax

True to their tax and spend, life-managing stereotypes, the Democrats are now saying they want to tax the sugar in everything from our breakfast cereals to soda pop (in order to keep us "healthy," no doubt). But don't worry; I assume the tax will only apply to those of us making $250,000 or more.

Can We Get a Refund?

Some leading economists say that the recession actually ended last month. If that's true, can taxpayers still get a refund on the $768 billion economic "stimulus" plan and the administration's proposed $3.6 trillion budget? They haven't even been taken out of their boxes yet.

Do It Anyway

When you just don't want to do it anymore, do it anyway.

Qualifications

Qualifications may get you an interview, but they won't get you the job. That's up to you.

September 10 All Over Again?

I like what Team Obama is doing with the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to present a united, coordinated front against the Taliban. But I still fear the administration has a September 10 mentality. Why else would they approve allowing a 747 and an F-16 to buzz the Statue of Liberty?

Drill Now

The price of a gallon of gas has gone up about 35 cents in the last few weeks. I for one am not eager to return to the days of $4 gas and $60 fill-ups. The present administration, like the last one, has so far done nothing to head off this crisis for American families.

It's not in the president's political genetics to do so, since he wants us all to conserve. But he also would like to be re-elected, and candidacies have crashed and burned over far less than this. Jane Byrne, for example, lost the mayorship in Chicago because she could not clear the streets of snow.

Mr. Obama no doubt knows this history. Let's hope he takes a few minutes off from his grand schemes to run the American economy to do something for the financially stressed American people.

His continuance in office may depend on it.

Swine Flu Swindle

From the article, "Swine-Flu Hysteria," by Bret Stephens in today's Wall Street Journal :

"In the matter of swine flu -- and the single dumbest response to it yet -- first prize was about to go to the government of Egypt, which last week ordered a cull of the country's estimated 400,000 pigs, never mind that the disease, name notwithstanding, is mainly transmitted human-to-human.

"But then an Egyptian health official admitted "the authorities took advantage of the situation to resolve the question of disorderly pig rearing." More likely, as the country's Coptic minority was quick to suspect, was that health and sanitation were merely pretexts to extend anti-Christian bigotry into matters of livelihood and diet."

Quote of the Day

From today's Wall Street Journal:

"Mr. Obama must be under the impression that the CIA used waterboarding as a first resort."