April 2008 Archives

Here's a question for any financial planning guru who may be out there. I put enough in my 401(k) each paycheck to receive the maximum matching benefit from my employer. I also have an option to have Roth(k) funds taken directly from my paycheck.

My question is this: if we were in a position to be able to increase the amount we had taken out of my paycheck for retirement, would it be better to increase the percentage going into my 401(k) (I have plenty of room to increase before I hit the maximum allowable contribution) or should I start a Roth(k) account? Or is there some other retirement investment I should look into? Or, is retirement as Americans typically "do" it even Biblical? Discuss.

I'm sure this is not an original idea, but if a local gas station were to sell gasoline futures I'd sign up. It probably wouldn't actually work for a local station to do it -- it would have to be a major distributor or refiner, like ExxonMobil. The idea would be that I, the consumer, would purchase x gallons of gasoline at the current price (probably on a loyalty card or something), which could then be used to obtain x gallons of gasoline sometime in the future from that company's stations -- no matter what the cost of gasoline would be at the time it was pumped.

I really think it could work. It would be especially useful for smaller freight companies and for small-business owners whose business depends on mobility. But it could benefit the refiners as well, allowing them to better plan for demand. The possibilities are pretty much endless as to how it could be used -- I'm thinking of everything from neighborhood co-ops (Nagi, point your commie detector at that idea and make sure it passes muster, eh?) to carpools. But something tells me it isn't going to happen with gasoline.

It cost me $40 to fill up my Honda Civic today. $40. For a Honda Civic. I remember when it only cost $15 for a full tank, and it wasn't that long ago. *sigh*

The point of this book is to question a U.S. foreign policy that took shape in the 1950's, one of covert and overt intervention and interference in the political processes of other sovereign nations. In the case of the CIA-led coup against Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically-elected secular, moderate prime minister of Iran who believed in freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly, U.S. intervention in 1953 led to the revolution in 1978-79 which put the Ayatollah Khomeini in power. It is hard to argue otherwise, no matter your political leanings, especially since the research in the book relies as heavily on the testimony of Americans and Britons who still believe it was the right thing to do as it does on those who believe otherwise.

The book's author draws a straight line between the 1953 coup and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and while it is a simplistic argument at best, it is again difficult to refute it entirely. Iran was at the time the most fully-developed democracy in the Middle East and may or may not have been in danger of becoming communist. What we are trying to accomplish in Iraq right now was reality in Iran in the early 1950's. But it doesn't matter now. What matters is that we learn from it, and understand how our interventions of the 1950's colors our relations with nations in the Middle East today. But we (meaning our politicians and military) probably won't.

I think I have gotten more reading done this year already than I did in the entirety of 2007. I finally finished the Arab history I started in 2006 (or was it 2005); I just finished A Short History of Asia today, and now I'm halfway through All the Shah's Men, a history of the CIA-led coup in Iran that deposed their democratically-elected secular-leaning government and installed a monarchy which was eventually replaced by Islamic extremists in 1979. The judgment of hindsight makes it easy to question the wisdom of initiating the coup; the most disappointing outcome of America's involvement in the coup was that we became hated in Iran as much as the British imperialists who had ruled Iran in the preceding centuries, whereas before the coup we were generally admired for our commitment to freedom and opposition to imperialism.

Of course, one of the many things I realized in reading the Asian history is how much the Chinese are disliked throughout Asia for their own imperialist past (ditto for Japan). The West doesn't have a monopoly on imperialism by any measure.

Another book I read recently was The Island at the Center of the World: A History of the Dutch Colony of Manhattan, which followed on the heels of another history of New York City, Mark Kurlansky's The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell. Next up in my queue is Kurlansky's A Basque History of the World. Then I'm looking for a Persian history. Somewhere in there I plan on re-reading Les Miserables (the unabridged version) and digging into more of Jane Austen's novels (I recently read Pride and Prejudice for the second time, and am looking forward to reading more of her novels).

Finally, with my two oldest children I have been reading Anne of Green Gables, a first for all of us, and very much enjoying it. We will continue reading the series out loud in the evenings until we finish it.

In other reading news, I finally convinced my wife to ignore her prejudices against fantasy fiction and give The Eye of the World a chance. She breezed through it, is thoroughly hooked, and is well into The Great Hunt at this point. I'm not sure when the 12th and final book is scheduled for release, but I'm hoping when it does come out she won't be ready to read it yet otherwise I'm going to have to fight over it with her. :)

I have many weaknesses. One of them is a fondness for functional technology and a tendency to purchase such items, within the limits of our budget (mostly). 3 years ago we got our first LCD monitor -- a 19" Samsung Syncmaster to replace the 19" Viewsonic CRT we used for our main computer.

For Christmas this year we bought a Viewsonic 22" LCD monitor for my Media Center PC (which was using the 19" CRT). We liked it so much, we started moving it back and forth between the desktop and the laptop in our room we use to watch movies in bed. It's the kind of situation in which we were just asking for an accident to happen.

So, this past week I went overboard and got another 22" LCD, this time an HP w2207 that TigerDirect had on sale.

I have been completely satisfied with all 3 LCD monitors we've purchased. Of the three, the HP has the nicest appearance but the Viewsonic (with a 2ms response time) has the best performance. The Viewsonic will be coming to Gamefest this year -- WarIII looks gorgeous on it and I expect whatever else we play will look nice as well. The HP (at 5ms) looks good, but when it is plugged in to the onboard graphics card on the laptop movies ghost a bit (it is also a D-sub connection). I'll have to give it a try on the DVI graphics card on the Media Center PC to give it a real test.

So while I don't have any TV's in my house I do have three LCD monitors (and I still haven't gotten rid of the 19" CRT yet), which seems excessive when I write it out. But as we discussed in our small group last night, what we have for material possessions is much less important than how attached we are to them.

As my previous post indicated (if you could divine it from all my ramblings), the main problem I have with the State of Texas' raid on the YFZ ranch is that they went in with a search warrant based on an allegation made by an unidentified individual over the phone, and came out with over 400 children who may or may not have been abused. Well, the media isn't making a big fuss over it, but it appears the phone call that prompted the issuance of the search warrant was a fake.

Civil rights, indeed. Where is the ACLU outcry now?

So a few years back, in an effort to rid ourselves of gas-powered property maintenance equipment, we bought a Black & Decker CMM1000 battery-powered mower. I really like it, but in the end the molded plastic control module has proven to be too troublesome for me to continue using this piece of equipment. Note to B&D: molded plastic is great for, say, a vacuum cleaner, but not so great for a lawn mower -- especially when it is part of the safety system and it fails to function because the molded plastic breaks. Since it is molded plastic, the first time it broke I had to replace the entire control module; this time, it isn't broken but the safety switch popped out of its housing and won't stay in, so when you release the handle the mower keeps running (not good).

Sooo, rather than go back to a gas-powered model, or another electric, we decided to go way retro (sort of): we bought a reel mower. Specifically, we bought a Gilmour RM30, which incidentally was less expensive than the replacement control module I bought for the CMM1000 last summer. But the best part comes next. . .

Jamie and I have had a long-standing argument about grass-cutting. I don't enjoy mowing. It is my least favorite outdoor activity (I prefer gardening). But up until now, due to safety concerns (and not a little pride, I'll admit), I have turned down Jamie's offers to mow for me. Power mowers are really dangerous, in my opinion, and I didn't want to expose her to the hazards of using them. But now. . .well, let's just say our back yard got mowed tonight while I was giving the kids baths. Sweet!

Even better -- with a powered mower, it would have been another 6 years or so before I would have allowed my oldest son to mow our yard. With a reel mower, he'll probably be doing some of it this year (and all of it next year).

It's been so long since I've used a gas-powered mower, I don't really remember how much gas one uses over the course of a summer. I seem to remember using a gallon or so a week at one point. As gas approaches $4/gal, the payback on a reel mower starts looking really good.

Anyway, that's all the news from Lake Jacobbegone, where all the men are strong, all the women are good looking, and all the children are above average. Thanks and goodnight!

Thanks to everybody who commented on the family defense/guns post. This next topic is one which spurs me to desire a weapon and demonstrates ably (in my opinion) why citizens of our country are given the right to bear arms.

Let me first say, I find polygamy reprehensible, insensible, and un-Christian: though there is certainly sanction for it under the old covenant, the New Testament is traditionally (and rightly, in my opinion) read as sanctioning only a marriage relationship exclusive to one man and one woman. The full orthodox Christian tradition supports this teaching.

In my lifetime in this country, the State has progressively relaxed restrictions on interpersonal relationships from the starting point of the Church's position (one man and one woman living together in the bonds of marriage, sanctioned jointly by the Church and the State), to where we are now. We have gone from a nation in which it was illegal (in most if not all states) for men and women to live together outside of marriage (which was a contract understood to be reserved only for one man and one woman) to a nation which places very few restrictions on sexual relationships. The question as to which relationships will be regulated and which will receive a certain legal status (which heretofore has been exclusive to heterosexual couples) is, at this point, very much unresolved at the federal level. At the moment, the major restrictions placed on consensual sexual relationships have only to do with the age of the people involved and how closely they are genetically related.

This begs the question: what interests does the State have in regulating interpersonal relationships? I would argue it has many compelling reasons to regulate sexual relationships, but that isn't the point of this post -- a point which I am nowhere near reaching at this juncture, so I'm going to abandon this line and move on.

The impetus for this post is, if you haven't guessed it yet, Texas' raid on the FLDS ranch last week (or was it just this past week?). There are a bundle of issues surrounding the raid, and the existence of the community itself; however, the one that concerns me presently is the forcible separation of children from their parents based on what seems to me to be exceedingly flimsy grounds.

There was a phone call, made by a person who has yet to be identified, making allegations against a single individual, who was part of a community of over 500 people. In response to this allegation, the state of Texas -- on the basis of a search warrant -- removed over 400 children from their parents' care and is placing them in foster care. No matter how the trial proceeds, and what its conclusion is, these children and their parents have been separated without evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the overwhelming majority of the parents.

I can't even begin to relate the number of fallacious and chilling arguments made to support this violation of parental rights. If the FLDS wants to practice polygamy, it has every constitutional right to do so (in the current legal climate) as long as it does not claim the special legal rights for that relationship. The question of the age of the brides at the time of their "marriages" aside (and I'm not saying it isn't an important question, just that it should have nothing to do with parental rights), the State has no legal grounds for taking custody of the children on the basis of a search warrant. Or at least, it shouldn't.

This post ended up being a lot more difficult for me to spit out than I anticipated. The issues this situation raises are intricate and multifarious (I think that's the word I want). What do you think? I've raised a lot of issues so far, and haven't even scratched the surface, so there is plenty of room for you to share your perspectives.

Here's what I know: if someone comes for my children, they had better bring a gun. And be ready to shoot me. Otherwise, they aren't getting them.

A husband and father clearly has a responsibility to protect his family, to guard not just their hearts and minds but also their physical well-being. So what does that mean in our society, which is generally peaceful and well-ordered? Generally, I say -- obviously there is plenty of lawless behavior going on around us but relative to, say, Zimbabwe, my little corner of the world seems rather tame.

So, the question remains -- what are reasonable precautions to take? There is a strain of American thought which believes a man must own a gun if he is to defend his family properly. My upbringing is firmly anti-violence and anti-gun in general, and I tend to be in the anti-gun camp still. But I am somewhat swayed by the argument that one needs to own a gun in order to defend one's family. So what do you think? Should I get a gun? Why or why not?