Littlestuff Weekender-12-5-2010

In a column that I will release tomorrow, I examine the “Big Bang Theory.” Related to that review is the claim by some scientists that there may be an additional 70 sextrillion galaxies and 300 sextrillion planets in addition to our galaxy (The Milky Way) and planet. A sextrillion includes the original number (in the above cases either 70 or 300) followed by 21 zeros. Twenty-one zeros is more than one-fifth of the U.S. Senate.


Here we are on December 5th, 2010, and the Congress has not passed a budget for FY 2011. By law it was due for completion on October 1st, 2010. So, they’ve been passing a series of ‘continuing resolutions” to authorize the expenditure of fund….well, nonexistent money.

It appears that the Democratic majorities will not be passing the budget in this lame duck session, so it offers a REAL opportunity for the new GOP majority in the House to engage in some serious changing of our nation’s priorities. The difficulty will come when picking the committee chairs. Traditionally a chairmanship goes to the party’s most senior member of the committee. Some of the GOP holdovers are notorious big spenders. Jerry Lewis from California is a great example of the profligate members of the Republican Party. Add to his propensity for spending other people’s money the fact that he has been in Congress since January of 1979. When one combines big spending with long-term arrogance as chair of the Appropriations Committee, it’s a recipe more disappointment. There are 13 appropriators scattered among the committees in the House, and nearly all of them will be career politicians who love using the national credit card.

As a writer and a commentator, I have some unique attributes. I know a little about a lot. I know a lot about very little, but I seem to have the compulsion to comment on everything. I guess that makes me an arrogant amateur.

This weekend and next I’ll list a few books that I recommend as well as some authors that I seek out when browsing for reading material. Right now, I have about 35 books on my “to read” shelves. When I find a work that intrigues me, I get it and put it on the shelf. One of my great personal losses during the campaign was my limited time for reading. Pat gave me one of those electronic readers last week, and that little innovation should provide me with more flexibility and time.

Inclined to Liberty by Louis E. Carabini

FairTax: The Truth by Boortz and Linder (the sequel)

The Five Thousand Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen

The Concise Guide to Economics (3rd.ed.) by Jim Cox

Anything by Allan W. Eckert: Eckert writes narrative histories of the Great Lakes region.

Anything by C.S. Lewis, Ayn Rand, John MacArthur, John Maxwell, Andrew Murray, R.C. Sproul, Max Lucado, Francis Schaeffer and many more.

Anything by Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fredrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and more.

Favorite fiction writers: Vince Flynn, Joel Rosenberg, Dale Brown, Ken Follett, Brad Thor, and a few others.

Poetry by Dylan Thomas

Geo-political analyses, historical biographies, political biographies, movement histories ad infinitum.

We’ll have another list next week.



Today’s column will close with three oxymorons:

Libertarian consensus, Democratic frugality, Republican courage.

Comments: earl4sos@gmail.com or cearlwriting@hotmail.com