Farming in the shade

TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties were scheduled to be held all over the country today. Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra lists these as up-and-coming tax changes: --Marginal income tax rates will increase for all income brackets. --The $400 "Making Work Pay" credit will expire. --Capital gains and dividend rates for individuals will increase. --The child tax credit will decrease from $1,000 to $500. --The death tax will return with a 55% maximum rate. --The Alternative Minimum Tax exemption will expire. And lest any readers think I am picking on the current administration exclusively, I was also appalled at the amount the federal deficit increased under the previous administration.  What do you think?

Now Washington wants the power to seize any financial firms (not just banks) that look to be on the verge of failure.  "Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG's most troubled unit." Read more here .  I'd better go read the Constitution again. Don't remember anything in there about this...

One of the basic rights that I feel very strongly about (um, yes--I homeschool!) is the right to make decisions about what's best for my children. I am concerned about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which some politicians have promised to bring to the US Senate with hopes of ratifying it. I believe that this would erode not only the rights of parents to make decisions about their children, but that it would also erode the strength of US law. While I am grieved about the many children around the world and down the road who are oppressed and abused, and while I want the people who do evil to them brought to justice, I do not believe that loving, caring, careful parents should be saddled with more legislation and regulation because of those who do wrong. (Side mini-rant: WHY do law abiding citizens have to pay the piper for the behavior of criminals? Have you tried to buy over the counter cold medicine lately? You have to give your name, address, phone number, date of b...

A chemistry professor in a large college had some exchange students in one of his classes. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow the government and install a new communist government. In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?" The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. "You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are u...

We may not cancel homeschool for snow days (much), but we did set the books aside today to watch the inauguration proceedings. Such an amazing thing--the peaceful transfer of power of such a large, complex nation. May God continue to grant us mercy and grace (mercy is not getting what we deserve, and grace is getting what we don't deserve)... Please remember to pray for our new president and his cabinet. Pray that God would keep their hearts pure from corruption. Pray that they would remember all those who are marginalized and cast off--even those who are not yet born. Pray that they would uphold the Constitution (I fear we continue to stray ever farther from those lofty ideals with each passing day). And pray that they would realize (as so few of us seem to realize anymore) that we must spend less than we take in... God bless America and her new President and Vice President!