As the last week has brought home to many, we live in troubled financial times.  Scott Johnson of Power Line posts some great advice from Lawrence Lindsey on financial self-preservation in times like these:

First, readers would be well advised to actually sit down and write up a budget if they have any doubts about whether their current income is covering their bills. Just to be clear, expenses include not only the minimum payment on an item like a credit card, but all the charges incurred in the month plus the minimum payment. And income does not include any draws on saving or home equity lines of credit. I once went through a budget exercise with a struggling 20-something and asked why he didn't have anything budgeted for gasoline for his car. His response was that he simply put it on his credit card so it didn't count as long as he was making the minimum payment.

Making minimum payment on a credit card or other revolving credit account is the path to bankruptcy.  If you can't pay the whole thing off every month, pay all new charges plus twice the minimum payment.  If need be cut up the credit card so there will be no new charges, and then pay more than the minimum payment each month.  No matter what you do, make sure the payment gets in on time each month.  Late charges will cost you far more than the interest rate.

Second, people should make sure that they have at least three, and ideally six, months' income saved in a place where they can get at it readily like a bank account or money-market fund. This is on top of items like retirement saving and college accounts.

Have enough cash (as in the folding green stuff) on hand to hold you though at least a week in case you can't make it to the bank (storm or other emergency).

Third, once this threshold is met, it is doubtless a good idea to start reducing debt, particularly on credit cards and auto loans. These are about to get much harder to obtain as the credit crunch inevitably spreads from the commanding heights of the financial sector into the consumer credit arena. It will not be surprising to see the limits on credit cards lowered sharply, fees for holding cards rise, and auto loans tough to qualify for. The goal for households should be to be able to use credit cards for convenience only--paying the bill in full each month--and to have the ability to pay cash for larger purchases like a car.

Finally, for those lucky enough to meet the above criteria, where one deploys one's assets becomes a serious matter in the current environment. There was a saying in the 1930s that you should not have all your eggs in one basket. It meant spread the assets around. In the calm environment of the last few decades this dictum was rejected for the convenience of one-stop financial shopping. You might want to consult a financial adviser or at least inquire at the institutions where you have assets what the insurance limits are and under what circumstances your assets can be seized by creditors of the institution. This means asking questions about deposit-insurance limits, the assets backed by money-market funds, and whether your investments are in custodial accounts.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) insurance limit is high enough to protect the amount of money most folk have in a bank, but for those better off it may be required to split your money among several banks to be sure it will all be covered.

Another factor to consider is that if your bank fails, while the FDIC will make sure you don't lose your money, it may take some time before you have access to it again.  Meanwhile you still have to pay the mortgage, the auto loan, credit cards, and put food on the table.  This is another reason to have an account at another bank with a month's worth of money in it.

La Shawn Barber tells the story today of Gianna Jessen:

Jessen’s teenage mother attempted to kill her via a saline solution procedure when she was seven and a half months pregnant. During this despicable procedure, a so-called doctor injects saline into the woman’s stomach, and the solution poisons the baby as he swallows and burns his skin. The baby dies, and the mother goes into labor, delivering a dead baby. ...

Jessen miraculously survived but suffered injuries as a result of the abortion attempt. She developed cerebral palsy. Jessen’s mother put her up for adoption, which she should have done in the first place instead of trying to kill her. Today, Jessen is a Christian and pro-life advocate who has testified before the U.S. Congress and the British House of Commons. Since 2005, she’s run in two marathons.

I have posted before here and here about Obama's votes against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.  As Obama said himself when denying he had done what we have multiple official proofs (including an audio recording) he had done, "It defies common sense and it defies imagination ..."  Of course he was speaking of those who were telling the truth about his actions, not the evil he had supported. 

I wonder what Obama would do if confronted by Gianna Jessen?  Andrew at Founding Bloggers writes:

I am not religious, or a card carrying member of the right. I am pro-choice! And this ad is absolutely devastating.

Gateway Pundit writes:

This is the defining ad of the campaign season...

How can any decent human being let alone anyone who calls themselves Christian watch this ad and read Gianna Jessen's story and still vote for Obama?

On 9/19/2001 Obama was quoted in the Hyde Park Herald as saying (in part):

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

Commenter James Felix on Michelle Malkin's website answers this well:

It is also indisputable that the majority are also male and have dark hair. A majority of them have also never attended a Star Trek convention. Are Y chromosomes, dark hair and a lack of appreciation for sci-fi also contributing factors?

Of course not. A basic tenet of logic is that correlation is not causation.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, there are a lot of countries that are much poorer and more desperate than any in the Middle East who somehow do not give birth to terrorist movements. Why not? If poverty and unemployment are contributing factors why aren’t they recruiting Americans who find themselves down and out? Surely AQ would dearly love to have some average-looking American citizens doing their work here within our borders. So where are the legions of Appalachian AQ operatives?

Unemployment and poverty aren’t the problems. The problem is that you have a demented society that teaches it’s children practically from birth that the road to paradise is paved with dead infidels. You have two generations now that have been trained to be receptive to the message that Bin Laden and his twisted ilk put out.

You can repeat the idea of a poverty/terror link till you’re blue in the face, it won’t make it true.

Barak seems to be very confused about the motivations of those that would attack us.  Of course he sat for 20 years listening to his Pastor Jeremiah Wright.  This is the same Jeremiah Wright who led Obama to Christ, at whose church Barak met his wife, who married them, and baptised their children.  Jeremiah Wright is a believer in and a leading teacher of "Black Liberation Theology" which lead him to preach about 9/11:

I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday, did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out, did you see him John, a white man, and he pointed out, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammed was in fact true, America’s chickens are coming home to roost. We took this country by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arowak, the Comanche, the Arapahoe, the Navajo. Terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Granada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers, and hardworking fathers. We bombed Qaddafi’s home and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against a rock. We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hardworking people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children from school, civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

So according to Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright it is the fault of the white citizens of the USA that we were attacked on 9/11.  No wonder someone who attended his church for 20 years is a bit confused!

Today Democrat Steve Cohen standing on the floor of the US House of Representatives compared Barak Obama to Jesus and Sara Palin to Pontius Pilate.  For a while they managed to block YouTube from showing this but it is now available again.

Everyone in Alaska knows Sarah Palin blocked the wasteful "Bridge to Nowhere" and even the Democrat Party acknowledged this on their website.  Then the McCain campaign started mentioning this fact, and Barak Obama decided to claim it was a lie.  Suddenly the Democrats in Alaska removed mention of this from their website.  They had to remove the proof that Obama was lying.

The national Democrat Party website held several references to Sarah Palin as a lipstick wearing pig, one of them illustrated by a charming picture of a pig wearing lipstick, glasses, and a necklace.  Barak Obama in a speech compared Sarah Palin to a lipstick wearing pig and John McCain to an 8 year old stinking fish.  Reasonable people everywhere were revolted by Obama's remarks, so of course he tried to deny having made them.  Guess what, the references on the Democrat website suddenly disappeared ...

Here is McCain's response to the attacks:

My friend Scott Ross (I engineered his radio program back in 1970 - 1971) sent the following email to me today:

Left wing groups are offering cash to anyone who can come up with dirt on Sarah Palin's husband.  The New York Times today ran no less than 3 front page stories on Sarah Palin's daughter.  Where will it stop?

As Michelle Malkin put it:

If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she’s a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children’s, health, and social welfare issues.

If a Republican mom chooses public office, she’s the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.

Glenn Reynolds quips:

HOW THEY COULD HAVE KEPT THE PALIN PREGNANCY STORY OUT OF THE PRESS: Leaked it that John Edwards was the father . . . ..

The statement of the Palin family today:

“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”

Obama said a little while ago:

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby."

As Michelle Malkin said:

"One ticket sees this as a blessing. The other sees it as a curse. Could the core differences between the two be any starker?"

John McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin (pronounced pale-in) of Alaska to be his running mate, and a lot of folk are asking "Sarah who?"  In an attempt to answer that question I have compiled the following bio.

Sarah Palin was born in Idaho and moved to Alaska as a child.

Known as "Sarah Barracuda" on the basketball court she helped her High School team win the state championship.  She also led the team in prayers before each game and is an evangelical Christian.

She married her high school sweetheart Todd Palin.  They have 5 children.  A strong Pro-Lifer, she refused to abort her youngest Trig, born while she was governor, when tests showed he had Downs Syndrome.  Her oldest Track, was named after the sport.  He has joined the Army and is about to be deployed to Iraq.

She was a "hockey Mom" who started in politics in the PTA then became mayor of Wasilla (her hometown near Anchorage).  She was Chair of the Alaska Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004, and the Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but quit in 2004 in protest against ethical violations by the Alaska Republican Chairman, a member of the Commission.  She went on to defeat the Republican Governor of Alaska in the primary on an anti-corruption platform, and then won the general election.

As governor she cut state spending in Alaska, killed the "bridge to nowhere", and is a big proponent of developing Alaska's oil and gas resources to help the USA become energy independent.  She is not, however, willing to give the big oil companies what they want when she sees that as going against the interests of her state and nation.  Her husband Todd quit his 17 year position with BP to avoid even an appearance of conflict of interest, when that company became involved in negotiations with his wife's administration over a gas pipeline.

She is opposed to same sex marriage, but vetoed a bill blocking health benefits for the partners of gay public employees.

When she needed money to go to college she entered beauty contests.  She won Miss Wasilla and was runner up in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest.

She hunts, ice-fishes, and is a crack shot.  She is a Life Member of the NRA.

She has sued the Federal government to stop the listing of polar bears as an endangered species, and has a grizzly bear her father shot covering the sofa in her office.

Back when pot was legal in Alaska, she tried it.  "I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled."

Todd Palin is a Union Steelworker who worked part of the year in the oil fields of Alaska for BP.  The rest of the year he runs a small commercial fishing operation.  He is part Yupik Eskimo and a 4 time winner of the 2000 mile Iron Dog snowmobile race. Last year he earned $93,000 total.

We know this because as governor Sarah Palin pushed through a strong financial disclosure law.  There is far more detail in the Palin's disclosure forms posted on the Internet, than there are in the Federal forms of our Senators and Representatives.

Ed Morrissey gives the background on how McCain came to select Sarah Palin.

Professor John Mark Reynolds writes about how Sarah Palin's experience is being undervalued.

Here is a side by side comparison of Sarah Palin and Barak Obama.

Here is the comparison in pdf form for easy printing.

The Obama campaign can't contradict the facts in this short video, so they are trying to bully TV stations into not showing it and have asked the Department of Justice to investigate the American Issues Project who produced it.  Do you want a President who uses government agencies to try to silence those he does not like?

Watch the video.

HT Michelle Malkin