Ministering as opportunity surrounds us does not mean selecting our surroundings, it means being very selectly God’s in any haphazard surroundings which he engineers for us.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, September 11 entry

The War to End All Wars turned out to be a fitting prelude to what seemed like the century to end all centuries. The ’30s witnessed a decade of economic instability and depressions. A second world war dominated the ’40s and heralded the uneasy era of nuclear weapons. The ’60s were ushered in by the violent murder of the president while a horrified nation looked on, and were plagued by civil unrest at home and an endless, pointless war overseas. The ’70s are defined by unprecedented economic woes and the loss of faith in our nations highest political office. The ’80s were laced with Cold War tensions.

As I prepared for class that Tuesday morning 10 years ago, I didn’t know what to make of anything. There was a numbing effect to watching the inky black plumes of smoke fill the skies over Manhattan and Washington. It quickly became obvious that this was an intentional attack on America, and I realized that this would be the defining moment of the inchoate 21st century.

Wilsonian foreign policy presided over the entire span of the 20th century, ostensibly making the world safe for democracy. At the dawn of the 21st century, the Bush Doctrine became the keystone to America’s role in the world, making the world safe for American exceptionalism and imperial expansion.

Ten years later the war that was launched in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks still rages on. The PATRIOT Act provides federal law enforcement agencies unprecedented and nearly unlimited power to eavesdrop, investigate, incarcerate, torture, and punish citizens of other nations and U.S. citizens alike under the vague rubric of “terrorist activity.” Americans have rationalized and even encouraged the ramping up of the police state and the belligerent empire, saying that giving up privacy and liberty is worthwhile for the perceived security gained by such concessions.

If my hunch is correct and 9/11 was indeed the harbinger of the 21st century (as it would appear, since ten years hence, little has changed), then this is the world that my daughter, grandchildren, and perhaps great-grandchildren will grow up in. The die is cast. God help us.

Although no one proposes that religious or intellectual activities be reviewed by moral engineers in Washington–though some actually try–we are only too happy (or too complacent) to allow the economic planners to review our economic actions, and we expect the government to care for us following any errors we commit or for some unforeseen result of our actions.

Ron Paul, End the Fed, page 132

The Department filed its lawsuit because we believe the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile would result in tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products for their mobile wireless services.

Consumers across the country, including those in rural areas and those with lower incomes, have benefitted from competition among the nation’s wireless carriers, particularly the four remaining national carriers.   This lawsuit seeks to ensure that everyone can continue to reap the benefits of that competition.

This was placed in an all-too-typical context by the cast of This Week in Google yesterday afternoon. Host Leo Laporte read this excerpt and declared, ”Two thumbs up, that’s great.”

Then Laporte concluded the conversation with this assetion: “I’ve heard libertarians say this: the one area of government involvement that does make sense in the economy is prevention of monopolies. That’s one thing we clearly need, and it’s one place that only the government can intervene. The market in fact promotes monopoly.”

I’m sure there are some who identify somehow with libertarian ideology who may demonstrate their ignorance of (or disdain for) legitimate libertarian laissez-faire market theory by making a statement like the one above. Indeed, people across the spectrum of libertarianism continually debate the proper role and scope of government in society. Nonetheless, I doubt there are many libertarians who would argue that of all the ways government can influence the market, preventing monopolies is the most legitimate or most effective. It is in fact neither legitimate nor effective.

The overwhelming opinion of Americans seems to be that a free market without any regulation or oversight will inevitably result in enormous monolithic companies that jack up prices and reduce quality and otherwise take advantage of consumers. The truth is that monopolies rarely last very long in a true free market scenario. From a free market perspective, as a monopoly becomes larger it becomes top heavy and inefficient, it loses focus and stops responding to consumer demand. Then it fails and something leaner, more focused, and more intent on providing what consumers want takes its place

You see, the market is not a “thing.” The market is not a group of investors or a gang of crooks. The market is a force, like gravity. It exists whether we want it to or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. If there is demand for blue jeans (or narcotics, or Bibles, or whatever), and an outside force attempts to quash this demand, it will be met in some other way. A black market will develop, styles will change, loopholes will be found. When the regulators look into their crystal ball, as Deputy Attorney General Cole has, and speculate about what may happen in order to inform their actions, they distort the market process just like the mass of a black hole distorts the fabric of space-time. All the rules of the market still apply, but the outcome is not optimal.

The market will dictate the outcome no matter what regulators decide. Once we realize that the market is not fertile soil for monopolies, we see that what has really been lost are the benefits that may have come from mergers and acquisitions. Suppose the regulators speculate that a merger will adversely affect the poor when in reality it would have positioned a company to better serve the poor in some way that the regulators hadn’t anticipated. And we’d never know.

Ron Paul at CPAC 2011 in Washington, DC. Image courtesy of Gage Skidmore on Flickr.

Thunderous applause and raucous cheers rise up each time Ron Paul makes a statement at one of the debates between the Republican presidential candidates. The response seems so disproportionate with that of the other candidates, I’ve heard several people comment about it. Even so, Ron Paul doesn’t seem to exist as far as the mainstream media is concerned.

Ron Paul finished a close second in Saturday’s straw poll in Ames, Iowa. He was just 152 votes short of Michelle Bachmann’s winning tally. But Sunday’s headlines tended to focus on Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, who came in third, Texas Governor Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney, who finished sixth and seventh, respectively.

Ron Paul did finally make the news today. The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart was talking about how the media seem to be ignoring Ron Paul. At least someone noticed.

But seriously, why the media blackout? Presumably, the media ignore Congressman Paul because they think he’s a fringe candidate, a long shot. But the enthusiastic applause in those early debates and–even more–his strong showing in the Iowa straw poll demonstrate that Ron Paul is more than just another face in the Republican candidate crowd. The media have made the wrong call. Ron Paul can’t be ignored any longer.

Of the top 10 candidates in the straw poll, including Perry’s write-in votes, nine of them have relatively similar platforms. Most of them have indicated that they are in favor of torturing prisoners if it serves America’s interests. Most of them are in favor of continuing our wars and military presence all over the world. Most of them are in favor of expanding the powers of the federal government over the lives of individuals in America and around the world in one way or another. They all represent various similar-but-different shades of the Republican establishment. That establishment received 12,003 votes in Ames on Saturday.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, stands for individual liberty, sound money, and a small, Constitutional government that is accountable to the people it serves. His ideas resonated with 4,671 straw poll voters. Among those who cast ballots for the top ten candidates in the straw poll, one quarter saw that Ron Paul is something different. That’s more than a fringe. That’s a number that can’t be ignored.

Subway, on the other hand, seems to slide under the busybodies’ radar. Perhaps it’s because their food is so stinkin’ healthy (after all that’s what their advertising tells us, so it must be true. Heaven forbid we should choose food because it satisfies our hunger and happens to be tasty!).

While we were out today, my daughter needed something to eat. She likes the sandwiches at Subway, and asked for one. At Subway, the grown-up combo comes with a bag of chips and a soda; the kids’ combo comes with juice or milk and apples or yogurt. Usually Katelyn gets some of the chips from my combo and we save the yogurt or apples for a snack later on. Today, since it was just Katelyn getting food, I asked if we could substitute chips for the side. The cashier shook her head and said that she couldn’t do that unless we paid extra for the chips.

For a while now, McDonald’s has allowed parents and kids to choose whether they want fries or apple slices  with a Happy Meal. Recently, they announced that all Happy Meals would include a smaller portion of both items (no doubt to appease the nutrition Nazis).

Who’s responsibility is it to oversee childrens’ diets? Not McDonald’s, not Subway, and certainly not totalitarian dietitians. For consumers, more choices are always better. I’m less inclined to patronize a Subway because they are less inclined to give me what I want for my money. It’s as simple as that.

In the end, the clerk at our local Subway offered a compromise: I could get a cookie instead of apple slices, and still have the pleasure of purchasing the extra chips. Thanks so much, Subway, for looking out for me.

I’ve been going to this particular steam show, in Berryville, Virginia, ever since I was old enough to tag along with my dad and granddaddy. Granddaddy planned the whole trip around the threshing machine demonstration. When he was a boy, he carried water for an engine running a similar machine.

For Granddaddy is was about nostalgia. When I was a kid, it was about him and my dad stooping in the summer-dry grass, leaning in and explaining to me how some whirring, popping blunderbuss worked. I nodded my head earnestly, even if I didn’t really quite grasp the concept. I did, however, sense the gravity of that exchange: a birthright was being passed down. Knowledge was being transferred from one generation to the next so that it wouldn’t be lost to history. I’m amazed at how readily it comes back to me as I point and explain to my daughter how one of the old engines works. I realize how useless even these simple things would be without the knowledge to use them properly.

Now that I’m grown up I can clearly see the make-do sensibilities of hard working people right there on display. Most of the machines–no matter how old–are still functional. There are a lot of oddities, homemade equipment, and repurposed parts. I’m pretty sure they guys who built them weren’t engineers or professional designers. They just did what worked. The level of craftsmanship is often remarkable, even though it’s clear that form follows function when there are chores to be done.

As I stroll around the fairgrounds with my daughter, I can see the industrial revolution steaming by right in front of me. It’s so close I can feel the sizzling heat of its boiler and smell the red-hot coke in its iron belly. Things and methods that changed everything over 100 years ago are still alive here, still being used today. “25 Horsepower,” one machine proudly declares with stylized numbers cast into it’s boiler in high relief. 125 years ago, 25 horses would have demanded a lot of food, water, space, and attention. Here was all that power packed into a relatively small form factor that could be parked in the shed at night. In the morning, it was ready to go again all day long.

Even in the midst of all this industrial age technology, as evening approaches, teams of massive work horses arrive to compete in the horse pull. As I watch, my mind is cast even further back to pre-industrial times when men and animals worked the land together. Then, I’m snapped back to the present as a modern tractor arrives to drag the weighted sled back into place after each horse team completes its pull. The 10,000-pound machine strains to tug the 7,500-pound sled down the dusty track, the same sled that the 4,300-pound pair of horses dragged with what seemed like just a little effort.

As the horse pull wraps up, I turn to Katelyn, assuming she’ll be ready to go. “Can we go walk around and see the motors one more time?” she pleads. I hoist her onto my shoulders and she begins to repeat some of the things I’ve taught her throughout the day. I think of my granddaddy beaming when he realized how interested I was in these things. I know she won’t remember this stuff for ever. She probably won’t even be all that interested in antique engines and tractors and such. It’s passing on the knowledge that matters.

1. Open the document you want to print key assignments for.
2. Open the Office menu and click Print. The Print dialog box appears where you can select how you want your document to print.
3. One of the options on the Print dialog is the Print What list. This lets you print the document properties or markup, among other things. One of the choices available is Key assignments. Choose that.
4. Click Print and out comes a handy guide to the key assignments for that document. The printed key assignments will also include the key assignments that the document inherits from templates (including the Normal template).

Click the Print What arrow and choose Key assignments

I’m using Word pretty much all day every day recently, so I customize my Normal template quite a bit so that I can bludgeon Word into doing my bidding no matter how much it balks and whines. That means I create a lot of custom macros and keyboard shortcuts and a handy guide is useful to keep track of everything. It’s always nice to have a handy guide for anything. Happy Word bludgeoning!

There was a little buzz about what the news might be, but for the most part the technorati seemed to see the announcement as a reactionary move in response to Google+. The overwhelming feel I got from conversations online was that whatever Facebook was going to unveil, it couldn’t possibly be as cool as Google+.

They were right. Facebook announced built-in Skype video chat in Facebook. Yawn. Gmail has had video chat built in since forever. The same one-on-one video chat is available in Google+. And what’s more, the new Facebook functionality doesn’t even come close to the awesome Hangouts group video chat feature in Google+.

Even with all this said, Facebook’s announcement is still a win for Facebook. There are two big reasons for this:

Facebook’s momentum: Facebook is just plain huge. It hit critical mass long ago and it’s reached 750 million users (another part of Wednesday’s announcement). Sure Google can pull away the folks who are always looking for the coolest bleeding edge features, but it has taken Facebook a long time to get everyone and her mom to join, and that user base isn’t going to abandon ship overnight.

Google’s barriers to entry: Google kills its own fragile momentum when even the people who want to get into Google+ and try it out can’t because the can’t get an invite. Even most of the people who have received invites from me still can’t get in. Not only has Google left eager users out in the dark, they’ve slammed the door on those of us who are stuck in Google+ with nothing to do but follow Robert Scoble.

So what does all this have to do with Skype video chat in Facebook? Facebook is the top dog in the social media scene. By a lot. Given the average user’s resistance to change–especially a huge change like jumping to a new product–they don’t have to do much to hang on to their user base. They only need to appease them with bare minimum features to compete with others throwing the best they have at them. Google+ is an awesome product. Google invested a lot of time and money into Plus, and it’s still not going to be enough to topple Facebook, at least not anytime soon.

Google+ has its warts, but it’s a fresh take on sharing information and experiences online. Google needs to step up and take the plunge and allow people to actually get in and use the thing. Until then, I’ll be seeing what Scoble has to say … a lot.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

—C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock