Business as Usual

in the radio address, Obama closed with language that suggests he will continue to try to walk a fine line.

"And I'm going to continue to work with Congress on common-sense financial reforms to protect people and the economy from the kind of costly and painful crisis we've just been through," he said. "Because after a very tough two years, after a crisis that has caused so much havoc, if there is one lesson that we can learn it's this: We cannot return to business as usual."

What does he mean? “We cannot return to business as usual.” For thirty years “business as usual” was pretty good. The economy was booming, people were building new homes, travel was available, electronic toys and device were starting and came to a crescendo, medicine made great advances. Olympic records were broken. The cold war ended. Business as usual is beginning to sound pretty good.

There were risky activities going on in the banking business during the last twenty years.. The efforts to make it easier for more people to own homes, led to many risky loans.

President Obama need not change the banking structure, but should only change what led to so many risky loans made to people who did not have the resource to pay for their loans.

Ice Cold Water

Recently I have become a drinker of warm water. Sounds strange, but just may be practicable. As I grew up, about sixty years ago, most people drank water out of the tap. There were drinking fountains in most public buildings. A lot of them bubbled straight up. In my first school there was a fountain like that. The water came straight up through a ball looking device. One would turn the water own, get a drink and the extra water would fall down on that ball, which would possibly contaminate the water for the person drinking later. The next drinking fountains would shoot the water out from the side. The extra water would fall down into the drain. Later, most of the fountains in public places and office were refrigerated that produced cold ice water. In the 70’s, fountain drinks with ice were available in gas stations and convenient stores. Ice was also provided to make a cold drink of water. I didn’t eat at restaurants much. But now everywhere water is ice cold or served with ice.

I like to shave using hot water, and brush my teeth using cold water. Now I am changing. I still use hot water to shave, but I am beginning to use warm water when I brush my teeth. What’s the Point? You may ask. I have observed that I can drink more water if it is warm and than if it were ice cold. It takes longer to drink ice cold water. I could hardly ever drink a full glass of ice cold water. The point is if you drink warm water you will drink more water on a given day than if it were ice cold. I had heard that those that do not drink much water or more likely to develop kidney stones. I googled kidney stones and one piece of information that I got was there are more cases of kidney stones in the last thirty year than there were before that. I copied the following from the internet:

“A simple and most important lifestyle change to prevent stones is to drink more liquids—water is best. Someone who tends to form stones should try to drink enough liquids throughout the day to produce at least 2 quarts of urine in every 24-hour period.”
click here for source of quote
Could one the causes of more cases of kidney stones be the introduction of ice cold water?

Hot Drinks

What is Meant by ’Hot Drinks’ in the Word of Wisdom

After the revelation called the Word of Wisdom was given the prophet Joseph Smith said that, ‘hot drinks’ refer to tea and coffee. There is no question that the chemicals contained in tea and coffee are harmful to most people.

The temperature of the drink is another issue. Usually coffee and tea are served boiling hot which increase the chance of one burning the inside of his mouth or throat. Coffee is setting in coffee pot that is kept hot all of the time. It is pored into a mug or cup that has a handle on it so the drinker can hold the mug comfortably without burning his or her fingers. That mug also keeps the drink hot for a longer period of time. Some people drink coffee from a boiling pot all day long which can cause burn damage to the mucus membranes in the mouth. Other hot drinks such as coco, postum, hot cider, and hot soup, etc. can burn the mouth as well. Years of drinking hot coffee will damage nerve endings somewhat, where they are not as sensitive to the temperature of the hot drink, therefore one can drink hot drinks without feeling the high temperature. Allowing even more damage to their mouth and throat.

One might say that ice tea, and cold coffee would be okay. They are prohibited by the Word of Wisdom because of their chemicals. Some cola drinks may contain more caffeine than coffee or tea. The church has not taken a position on cola drinks; however, Bruce R McConkie stated that the drinking of cola drinks was in violation of the spirit of the Word of Wisdom. A cup of tea contains about half the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. One should abstain from un-prescribed drugs, thought not mentioned in the Word of Wisdom.

There are some herbal teas that are not prohibited by the Word of Wisdom. The water from the cooking of spinach would be called and herbal tea, spinach tea. But if they are boiling hot when drunk, then one would be subject to burn damage in the mouth.

The bottom line is: Avoid the use of hot drinks (tea and coffee) as mentioned in the Word of Wisdom.

Before and After

This may not be true
A couple of years before the election the Democrats were hoping that the war in Iraq would go badly, and the economy would worsen. Now the republicans are hoping that the economy will continue to be bad and the ware in Afghanistan will continue to go badly.

The George bush was severly critized for his handling of the bad weather in the south. Hurricanes Katrina. The same thing is going on in Haiti. Aide is slow to get into Haiti. There is no criticisms coming from the republicans. But it the republicans were in power there would be plenty of criticism from the democrats.

Freedom to choose

I try to read from the scriptures every morning before I have breakfast. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Things unschedled come up so I can't do that. I read from the standard works, which are the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. Right now I am reading the second book of Samual. Our Sunday school lesson is on the creation and part of that is from the Book of Moses. It tells about the need for a Savior. Lucifer expressed his desire to be the Savior by saying the following:

"Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor. Moses 4:1

After I read that I made a comparison with our government today.

"Behold here am I, send me to Washington, I will be your president, and I will care for all of our citizens, that one, not one will have any problems, and surely I will do it; give me all power."

Think about what the government is doing now.