Interesting article in, of all places, the New York Times about the effect of the repeal of blue laws on happiness in women. To nutshell it, the study indicates that a repeal of the blue laws (which, among other things, dictated that retail stores be closed on Sundays) led to a decline in church attendance and a decline in female happiness.

This, in and of itself, is interesting, but it also allows one to open up the subject – have the repeal of the blue laws improved our society? This study tends to indicate there is a concrete, measurable detriment to society in such actions. Lots of suggestions are made in the article as to why this should be – I go with the suggestion that a open store as a temptation to stay away from church leads to unhappiness as we human beings are supposed to be turned towards God. Turning away from Him in order to get 15% off at the mall is inherently disastrous. But even leaving aside such matters of faith, I still believe that the blue laws should be re-instated.

Our modern, always on the go society is suffering from what amounts to a spiritual hernia. The demand for the instant and for the inexpensive – ginned up by advertising campaigns which stimulate both our greed and our self-regard (how many commercials have you seen where it is asserted you “deserve” some item? Truth is, as Shakespeare put it, if we were treated as we deserved, none of us would ‘scape whipping) – have turned us in to a people of no time. No time to pause and reflect. No time to just sit and read a book. No time for family. No time for anything except working to earn the money to spend – and then borrow when we don’t have enough to spend at the moment.

I experience this at my own employment for a major, international financial firm. I will be at work tomorrow, on a Sunday. Because it is felt (quite erroneously, given the state of the economy) by senior management that there might be a flood of people looking for credit for purchases. I’ll also work on Monday, a holiday, for the same reason. There are people at my employer working right now – and there will be people working there ’round the clock, every day of the year (they do graciously still allow us off on Christmas and Thanksgiving day – but we have foreign outfits who can take the calls on those days). While I’m not there at the time,, I do come across the people who had called or e mailed at 2AM their time asking for a credit limit increase. If you’re looking for money at 2AM, then you’re doing something you shouldn’t…but, we’re there for you! Bankrupt yourself – exhaust yourself; you’ll always find one of our friendly people available to help!

This is good? This is necessary? No, it isn’t. What is necessary is time for human beings to be just that: human beings. And that means taking some time off. Even in the days when most humans worked from dawn until dusk in backbreaking, agricultural work, there were still plenty of holidays (which, by the way, should be noted as a mere contraction of Holy Days…feast days of the saints, and such, added to the Sabbath, so that everyone got enough time to rest and relax). We should be by and large closed for business on Sundays. And on holidays.

To be sure, the business of life does require that some work be done every day of the year. And, of course, you’ll never get Las Vegas casinos to close (though they really should – I mean, seriously, how much money is the casino really taking in at, say, 4AM on a Tuesday morning? Is it really enough to justify keeping the staff up all night?). But we should strive for a general stoppage of work at least one day a week – and as we are a nation of deeply Christian background, the logical day for it is on Sunday. And we should do a bit of enforcing holiday closures – don’t have people’s holidays wrecked because a company decides it can squeeze out 0.01% more profit if they open up at midnight, Thanksgiving rather than waiting until 9AM or so on Friday.

Old fashioned? You bet – but as has been pointed out by men much wiser than myself, if you’ve gone wrong then some times the only way to get back on track is to go all the way back to where you messed up. We messed up in becoming a relentlessly consumerist, 24/7 society. It is time to step back and become more human – and more happy as a result.

From Reuters:

Republican Meg Whitman has opened up a 7-point lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in their closely watched race for California governor, the latest poll of likely voters showed on Friday…

Not being from California I really can’t say exactly what is happening out there, but I suggest the following: an increasingly corrupt and out of touch California government is about to be punished at the polls. I think Whitman understands this – taking a page off the scandal of local government pay, Whitman has been running ads (which I heard when I was out there dealing with my brother) pointing out that Jerry Brown, when mayor of Oakland, lavished pay on his staff.

It is a devastating and unanswerable critique and exactly geared towards an election which a revolt of the people against the government. And it is things like this – a GOPer 7 points ahead in what has been a very blue State – which tells me that we should throw out the political rule books. All the pundits and polls and prognostications need to be taken with a grain of sale – no one really knows what is going to happen on November 2nd. Other than in the general sense that Democrats, holding more offices than the GOP, will lose more.

But don’t be surprised by any turn of events – the only thing we can do is just work for our side and just let things play out as they will. The people are in charge of America’s politics – not the politicians and now the “experts” who presume to tell us how things will be.

From Big Peace:

Geert Wilders has just learned that an Australian imam named Feiz Muhammad has issued a fatwa calling for the Dutch politician’s beheading. Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated a couple of Dutch-language articles on the topic, and includes additional material about Mr. Muhammad from various Australian sources…

Do click on the link and read the translated articles – they express a savage worldview.

What this tells us is that we continue to be at war. Our current leadership might not want to admit it. Politically correct liberals hate the idea of it. It would be temporarily easier if we just wrote such things off as aberrations. We can hide from the truth, but the truth remains. The terrible fact is that around the globe a subset of Islam has taken it upon itself to conquer and forcefully convert the whole world – and the rest of the Moslem world either will not or cannot bring itself to destroy the subset.

Personally, I think it is “will not” – while we get “moderate” Moslems who will, at times and after especially horrific crimes, make some noises about condemning the Islamists, I don’t believe that the bulk of Moslems really views Islamist actions as wrong. Perhaps unwise, but not wrong – at some level, almost all Moslems have a tolerance of and, perhaps, an admiration for, those Moslems who choose the jihadist path.

We will only stop the Islamists by a combination of raw, military force and a steady pressure on the Moslem world to reform. In the end, they will have to become more like us. More tolerant, less exclusive – and genuinely horrified at violence against innocent people without all the “an Israeli killed a Palestinian so its ok for an Algerian to kill Spaniards” nonsense. The one thing we can’t afford to do is let our guard down – or allow people like Feiz Muhammad to live unmolested. People such as him who make such statements will have to be taken or killed.

Free speech? Of course we have that – but we also have in our free speech the understanding that an incitement to violence is not protected…and a statement from an Imam that a person should be beheaded is an incitement to violence. We must get realistic about things – the Islamists who attack us don’t get written orders from an al Qaeda command post to carry out attacks…it is all done in a very decentralized way. And one of the things required for terrorist attacks is some statement from a respected (by Islamists) Imam that such and such action is in the interests of jihad. Now that this Imam has made the pronouncement, it will be up to some Islamist cell some where to carry it out. And they will try – of that we can be sure.

This is a serious business we’re dealing with – and the longer we carry on in a fog of political correctness and references to “man-caused disasters” the worse the situation will become.

Krauthammer quoted over at NRO’s The Corner:

… I think it’s the kind of arrogance and contempt that was shown by the Democrats.

Look, when you had the election in Massachusetts where a Republican wins a Senate seat held by the Kennedys since 1952, it means something. But it was ignored. And after it happened, Democrats shoved a health-care proposal down the throats of the Congress and the people even though it was unpopular, even though the Brown election of Massachusetts largely hinged on that and was a message about it. It was a demonstration of [Democrats saying]: We have an ideology. We won the election in ’08. We’re going to do it, and we don’t care.

And that I think is what stokes the anger of the electorate, and the energy of Republicans…

It isn’t, either, that it was just this one instance of Obamacare – that was the straw which broke the camel’s back. After decades of government ignoring the expressed will of the people, to see the raw exercise of power used to shove Obamacare through was just too much.

The people are furious with an out of touch, corrupt government all to clearly controlled by special interests. And the people, I think, will turn that government out as far as possible on November 2nd.

Because the ruling elite is becoming both more out of touch and more arrogant all the time – from the AP:

The California Assembly this week began enforcing a long-forgotten rule that constrains media coverage of legislative debates by prohibiting audio or video recorders without permission.

The rule requires reporters, television stations and even lawmakers themselves to receive advance permission from the Assembly speaker’s office before recording Assembly sessions…

In the era of TEA Parties, New Media and, most importantly, You Tube, it seems that the Democrats of the California Assembly (and they absolutely dominate that body) would prefer to not have a ready supply of direct quotes on video and audio. Such things make it hard for dimwitted politicians to deny their idiocy – so, better not to have them, at all.

A small matter – and the rule seems to have been suspended because of an uproar – but still very important. Like all collapsing power elites, ours are trying desperately to hold back the tide. They are hiding and hoping we’ll stop coming after them.

Won’t work; not even for a minute.

From Yahoo:

While the rest of the political world is preoccupied with the midterm elections, Chicago dentist William DeJean is hatching plans for 2012. He shelled out $5,000 to create an ad encouraging Americans to back a Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2012. He says the spot will run in New Orleans, Washington, New York and Los Angeles…

This is something which in any sort of normal political climate simply would not happen – but, this isn’t a normal political climate.

To be sure, if Hillary were to challenge Obama for the nomination, she’d almost certainly lose. If by some chance she were able to defeat Obama in the primaries, she’d probably lose the general election as a divided Democrat party gets crushed by a united and surging Republican party. So, why would Hillary do it?

The answer is, “because she figures she could divide the GOP – or senses that the GOP is becoming divided and thus thinks she can pull it off”. How would the GOP become divided? That would happen if we go through all the trouble of electing a new GOP Congressional majority only to find them RINOing it all to heck and gone. In other words, if they shy away from attempting to repeal Obamacare or don’t ruthlessly block the confirmation of liberal judges…then the GOP rank and file just might get very, very angry and start casting about for a Third Party alternative.

Could be a very interesting couple of years – our first sign of a Hillary run coming would be her resignation as Secretary of State by about March of 2011…giving her enough time to both distance herself from Obama and build up her campaign team on the sly.

Back to 9.6% goes the official unemployment number – while the total unemployment rate (unemployed, partially employed, out of the labor force because discouraged) rises to 16.7%. All in all, we’re right back where we were in August of 2009, as can be seen in this chart. Meanwhile, because the BLS sacrificed a goat to the Shades of Keynes and re-massaged the June and July data, it appears that the employment picture for those months didn’t suck quite as bad as originally figured…and so stocks took heart and rose 1% in early trading.

Welcome, my friends, to the economic Alice in Wonderland world of Obamunism. It both sucks, and it doesn’t make sense.

Underneath the headline data is the true story – as Mish points out; and its a grim picture. The bottom line is that there has been no improvement in Obama’s “Recovery Summer”, and we have a host of recent information indicating future problems. Our rosiest scenarios figure we’ll limp along with 10%-ish unemployment and slack 1 and 2% GDP growth for a while…the worst-case scenarios have us dropping in to a 1930’s style Depression. I figure we’ll get the latter – but even if things turn out good, they’ll still be bad.

As I’ve said before, only a fundamental change in our economic policy will fix our problems. We need balanced budgets, reduced debts, lower taxes, eased regulations…and a basic attitude that if something is being made, mined or grown by Americans, it must be encouraged. The really bad news is that I don’t think Obama even suspects the problem…

With the recent defeat of Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, the debate over the fundamental direction of the GOP has heated up. On one side are those who would rather lose a few races on November 2nd rather than keep or install a few more RINOs in to Congress, on the other side are those who say that the pragmatic facts of life are that we must have some RINOs in order to have a majority. Over at Hot Air Allahpundit wades in to this regarding the Castle vs O’Donnel GOP Senate Primary in Delaware.

Allahpundit admits that Castle is a RINO – that he’ll vote against us some of the time, but also asserts that only Castle can win. A vote for TEA Party-backed O’Donnell is, in effect, a vote to keep the seat in liberal Democrat hands. I have to say that I’m less than impressed with the argument.

If we lose the Delaware race then we’ll be replacing an ultra-liberal from a blue State with an ultra-liberal from a blue State. Meaning that if we lose, we’re no worse off than we are now. Additionally, none of us ever thought we had a chance to win the Delaware race, anyway. Getting the seat is not crucial to GOP or conservative long term prospects – it’d be a nice feather in our cap, but our movement doesn’t stand or fall on the Delaware result.

Now, let’s step back for a moment and ask ourselves, what do we want? I mean, as the Republican party and as a conservative movement, what are we trying to accomplish? Getting 51 Senators? Making Mitch McConnell Senate Majority Leader? Obtaining the chairmanships for our guys? No, that is not what we’re after. What we’re after – if we’re Republicans and conservatives, at all – is a constitutionally governed Republic.

Getting such means getting judges who will rule on the law, not make law. Getting legislators who will do their job, and not leave it to the permanent bureaucracy to work out the legal details of vague, badly-written legislation hastily passed through Congress. Getting our fiscal house in order by eventually balancing the budget and paying off the debt. Reducing the tax and regulatory burden on the American people. Fundamentally curbing the powers of the federal government so that the people and the States will be once again able to run their own affairs. This will, naturally, take a lot of time and effort – and the thing is that in getting to such a place RINOs would continually cut us off at the knees.

When we needed to curb the power of the minority to filibuster judges in the Senate, who stopped us? RINOs. When we needed to stand firm to stop Obama’s stimulus package, who gave way? RINOs. When it comes time to cut spending, who is out there willing to “compromise” with Democrats? RINOs. Always and everywhere, when conservatism – when the principles of Constitutional governance – are swept aside, it is always RINOs who are joining with the other side to defeat us.

I know the theory – better to have someone in office who will vote with us 80% of the time than someone who will vote with us 20% of the time. That would be fine but it is always on the most crucial issues where the RINOs decide its time to show “independence” and break with the GOP. It gets them invited to the nice parties; it gets them glowing write-ups in the MSM; it gets them on the Sunday morning talk shows…its all good, for RINOs. Not so good for the GOP and the United States.

We can already see a bit of what 2011 will be like if the GOP wins a Senate majority – Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Lindsay Graham will try to carve out some sort of “maverick”, independent position (at least in the MSM narrative – they’ll actually be slavishly devoted to the Ruling Class, of course). On the happy morn of our victory, it will be those RINOs who will irk us…who will “reach across the aisle” when its time to confront Obama and his Democrats. We’ll be trying to get them to concede to American Constitutional principle, and here will come our RINOs to completely wreck the program. Why add to our troubles by adding more RINOs? Why even get a Senate majority if it is by grace of RINOs? Better to have a strong, difficult-to-break-a-filibuster minority than be dependent every step of the way on placating people who are just waiting for their chance to throw us under the bus.

2010 is turning out to be a gift for us in the GOP. As recently as a couple months ago, our brightest dreams were of adding two or three GOP Senators. Now there is an outside chance of a GOP majority. But more important than what happens in 2010 for the Senate is the fact that in 2012 and 2014, we have the opportunity to really clean up – in those two cycles a large number of first-term Democrats from red States will be up for re-election. Well-run campaigns from us will allow us to really stock up on conservative Senators…enough, when added to those currently in and those we’re likely to get in 2010, to have a genuine conservative GOP majority in the Senate. Might still need some RINOs for cloture, but we’ll never need them to get a majority vote. If we play our cards right – and if we don’t shove a bunch of additional RINOs in there.

And, finally, we should never concede that liberalism has a place in America. When we say, “well, its a blue State so we’d better RINO-up or we’ll never win” what we’re saying, in effect, is that conservatism is not true and not worthy of support. Either we believe in our conservatism, or we don’t – if we do, then we should be presenting it everywhere. Tactical adjustments can be made depending on where we’re running – deciding on what part of conservatism to emphasize, that is – but we must hold that conservatism can win everywhere…because the truth can win everywhere.

Supposing O’Donnell, winning the nomination, does get clobbered (and, yes, I did read the Standard’s piece on her – she does drift in to some whining kookism..memo to O’Donnell…even if your opponents are rat bastards, don’t complain about it: it looks weak). So, what? Just an incident in the long process of turning Delaware conservative. It is what we must do – hit again and again on conservative ideals in all 50 States until we win the whole ball of wax…until, that is, all political debates are carried out within the framework of conservative ideals, just as when liberalism won it all back in the 1930s, for 40 years we essentially debated only what sort of liberalism to have. Better, at any rate, to fight it out on principle, and lose, than to fight it without principles and merely get a built-in knife in the back.

There is room for a wide variety of views in conservatism. For instance, no one can really question my conservative credentials, and yet I’m opposed to the death penalty and I favor some sort of path to citizenship for at least some illegal aliens. You can be conservative and be a lot of things – but what you can’t be, because we can’t afford it, is a “moderate” who just waits for the chance to go against us when the chips are down. When the crucial “either/or” votes – the votes which define conservatism as being in opposition to liberalism and in favor of a distinctive world view – that is when we must rally ’round. And that is when, precisely, we’ll regret it if we backed RINOs just to get someone with an “R” next to their name in Congress.

From Victor Davis Hanson – here is one of them, voted by me as most likely to annoy liberals:

American elites crucified Bush. Vein-bulging Al Gore called him a liar. John Edwards and John Kerry tag-teamed him in vicious attacks. Alfred A. Knopf published a novel imagining his assassination. The Toronto Film Festival gave first prize to “The Death of a President”, a 2006 docudrama about killing President Bush. I could go on again, but you remember the times, in which everyone from John Glen to Garrison Keillor played the Bush Nazi/brownshirt card.

And now? John Edwards imploded in scandal. John Kerry was exposed as a tax-dodging elitist hypocrite. Al Gore, if not a sex poodle, at least is a green-con-artist of the billionaire sort, who both hyped a world-ending crisis and then profited from his rhetorical overkill by selling supposed green snake oil in the fashion of medieval penances. CBS, the New York Times, and Newsweek now totter near financial insolvency, after showing both poor judgment and questionable ethics: from the Times’ offering a discount for the moveon.org “General Betray Us” ad to a Newsweek senior editor declaring Obama a “god.” Suddenly bad things have happened to most of Bush’s loudest critics. (Note I’ll pass on the post-Bush Letterman or the post-Bush Rangel)…

Read the whole thing – and then send it to all your liberal friends.

Human tragedy tends to bring people of different backgrounds together – but not always:

A Catholic Church figure in Pakistan has charged that local authorities decided with “deliberate intention” not to provide adequate flood protection to regions with high numbers of minority religious groups, including Christians and Hindus.

The international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) claimed that “a key church figure” who “cannot be named” described a deliberate failure to reinforce key sections of the Indus River overlooking areas in the Sindh province which have a high density of tribal communities…

He probably cannot be named because it would be at the risk of his life to do so – such is Islam as long as it has the attitude that non-Moslems are sub-human filth…as long, that is, as Mecca is off limits to non-Moslems, so will this double standard in the Moslem world exist.