Ponderances, 6 August

The heat: It was 94* here today. 94* never felt so good as when it's been over one hundred the last two weeks (and pushing 110* the last few days).

Root, root, root for the home team. Being a displaced Minnesotan (though I'm really an Arizonan), I've taken to my parents theory of loving the team that's close by. I can't bring myself to loving the Dallas Cowboys (sorry, Drew), but I have developed quite an affinity for the Texas Rangers. They're comfortably above .500 this year, and in fact, they'd only be 3.5 games out of first in the Twins' division. But because the LA Angels are playing surreal baseball, they're ten and a half games out in their division. Who said life's fair.

Today brought quite the rainshower to what's been a bit of a literary drought in Op-Ed America. Here are a few juicy articles for your chomping. I'll start with Walter Williams bit of history about the Barbary Wars (linked here). When US Ambassadors Jefferson and Adams (yeah, those guys) asked why the Muslims were attacking the US though unprovoked, the response received was:

“It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.”

That was over 200 years ago.

Chasing your dreams. More baseball. It works so well so often when allegorizing life. Great article today about Evan Longoria (no he's not on "Desperate Housewives"), the man who seems to be the lock for Rookie of the Year (linked here). It's an especially good one to pass on to your teens or to motivate you to follow the dream God has place upon your heart.

Legal plunder. Many of you may never have heard the term. It's one with which you should be intimately familiar. Walter Williams writes about how commonplace acceptable thievery has become in our country and who the perpetrator is (linked here).

"Government income redistribution programs produce the same result as theft. In fact, that's what a thief does; he redistributes income. The difference between government and thievery is mostly a matter of legality."

Our Constitutional ignorance has cost us dearly.

There are a couple of other good reads out there but I'll leave you to mine the ore.