Apparently the left and progressives, as noted recently, find that race and its consequences are the most important historical axis/issue on which to judge American history. On Monday I had asked:

Is this what the left believes, that “race is the single most important and consequential issue in all of American history.” Really? Wow.

There are a number of arguments against this. Here is the first one. What is the most important issue, what is the most important factor to track when viewing history of American and indeed the larger international history?

Math. Specifically, the history and development of the body of Mathematical knowledge.

Consider first the following. Imagine for a moment American history without race. No civil war, no civil rights movement and so on. Possibly without a civil war America would have been in a different place regarding the power of the central government and perhaps in that light a weaker America might have reshaped the outcome of the brewing European conflicts.

But … picture instead a world history without technology, without the advances in power such as steam, oil, and electricity; without the transistor, the printed circuit; without automation and industrialization. Picture instead, America in a world in which technology was still at the level of the Roman era. Wars were still fought with spear, sword, and javelin. That there were no airplanes, instead galleys and sailing vessels still plowing the seas.
Read the rest of this entry

• Anticipating 2012 more predictions here.
• A magazine plug, on which I concur.
• Art.
• Party alliance and income and more do check out the highlighted link here.
• Patristics carnival.
• I had noted I had seen no evidence of right wing rage on Obama’s election … apparently if you search for it you can find it. However, based on the hundreds of right wing (dominantly Christian blogs I have in my feed I think the fact I saw none is significant).
• Dog talk and political rhetoric.
• Heh.
• Who really lost in this election.
• Eschatology without the man (who is God).
• Faculties of mind.
• Prop 8 and Obama’s coattails.
• Patristic pitfalls and the Orthodox convert.
• Skepticism and uniform individualism.
• Another book to read.
• A libertarian looks at the election result.

• Our new Insect Overlords?
• The Year in Review.
• Turnout … not so impressive it seems. 31% for Mr Obama, 27 for Mr McCain and the biggest sector didn’t want either.
• Theology of a philosophical nature to consider.
• On the death of religion.
• The response of the election results from the religious right, sample one, sample two. I personally think that such examples would be hard to find on the left if the tables had turned.
• Construction.
• From an economists perspective.
• A real suggestion for a force field.
• Whatever.
• Heh.
• I’m voting for the minority choice it seems.
• Byzantium.
• Yet another “fact” which fits in the common narrative, which is just wrong.
• Relational apologetics.

• Betting and God.
• (inter) Faith and a funnel.
• For election day a BCP prayer for the good of the land.
• I threw my sticker out.
• Christian rights (not rites).
• Moron.
• Mr Strauss part two, part one here.
• Ephraim!
• Virtue vs fairness.
• Android.
• Dark matter at the Tevatron?
• Obvious bias of the media yet again.
• Flipper.
• Heh.
• Heh again.
• Mr Obama and SSM … mutually inconsistency on display.
• On a more serious note … how to pedal efficiently.
• And some “seriously” gonzo cars.

This paper by Eugene Wigner entitled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” gets too little play in the faith/science discussions. He begins:

THERE IS A story about two friends, who were classmates in high school, talking about their jobs. One of them became a statistician and was working on population trends. He showed a reprint to his former classmate. The reprint started, as usual, with the Gaussian distribution and the statistician explained to his former classmate the meaning of the symbols for the actual population, for the average population, and so on. His classmate was a bit incredulous and was not quite sure whether the statistician was pulling his leg. “How can you know that?” was his query. “And what is this symbol here?” “Oh,” said the statistician, “this is pi.” “What is that?” “The ratio of the circumference of the circle to its diameter.” “Well, now you are pushing your joke too far,” said the classmate, “surely the population has nothing to do with the circumference of the circle.”

Perhaps a little note to preface this is appropriate. Wigner is adamantly not an uncredentialed crackpot, far from it. Of him, and a select few others, a science historian might write a paper on the “unreasonable effectiveness of Hungarian mathematicians” in 20th century physics and mathematics … and Mr Wigner would be a prime example. Read the rest of this entry

The polls and that entire industry might be finally be universally recognized as being as a completely useless tool/enterprise.

• A prayer for the election. More along that line here.
• Demographics and an illusion (HT: Tom McMahon)
• Is this what the left believes, that “race is the single most important and consequential issue in all of American history.” Really? Wow.
• Open communion and a controversy.
• Mr Obama and being born alive in the hands of those who wish your death.
• ’cause if the Dems win, they’ll likely be able to vote in the next election.
• Links from Brandon. Silly links here.
• Cuteness.
• Socialism and the wealthy.
• Careful consideration of Mr Obama and the socialist charge.
• Much is made of the “Obamacons”, what is the converse?
• Mr Obama is said to be a Constitutional scholar … so why does he lie about Constitutional issues? Is there a choice that isn’t “stupid or evil?”

The current gauntlet run by our candidates is meant to select the best man for the job. In a recent post, I discussed another (fictional) method used which had two features. First, the criteria was for the optimal candidate was structurally fixed, in that case it was the “best predictor” of future events. Secondly, given that criteria the government in question, again fictional, setup an effective means of selecting the best candidate for the job. Read the rest of this entry

• Mr Obama as Gatsby.
• On the crowds greeting Mr Obama (HT: David Foster)
• Books on sex and marriage … my preference is for Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar.
• Israel as canary and also from Israel … the dog that didn’t bark in the night.
• For anyone who’s had a political sign (which means you’ve had one stolen).
• Flying on a broom, mid-tech version.
• Man and God.
• Mr Obama and elitism (satire).
• Fellowship, friendship and the Christian life.
• Meanwhile in Iraq.

Consider the case of Mr Ayers … and this time not one bit in relation to Mr Obama. Mr Ayers for some years acted as a domestic terrorist. He bombed, killed, and spread terror for some time. He and his cohorts worked actively and spoke fervently about bringing down the government of the United States preferring Communist rule to a republic. He was eventually caught .. but it turns out those that caught him used illegal wire-taps and the evidence could not be submitted.

In the TV Show Law and Order, quite frequently legal system is shown with the police confronted by the issue in which if the rules are not strictly followed guilty parties will go free. Typically in those shows (and alas I have no other experience with the how such matters play out), the punishment inflicted on the police in these matters is just that. That is the primary and perhaps only punishment inflicted on the law enforcement agencies is that they “don’t get their man.”

Is that sufficient. Would a system in which penalties on the law enforcement agencies were harsher, imprisonment and loss of employment for infractions being more common but that the evidence so collected remained admissible in the legal proceedings against the defendant. After all, in Mr Ayers case he did commit the crimes. He should be imprisoned … still. His crimes were heinous and needed stopping as fast as humanly possible. Clearly the police had reasons to suspect him, for they didn’t randomly wire-tap everyone, the machinery to do so doesn’t exist. They picked likely targets and found their man (and his wife). If they proceeded more slowly … more people would likely have died. The notion that more severe penalties might be submitted instead of a “get-out-of-jail free card” for the defendant … might allow a enforcement team to choose between their job and saving lives instead of saving lives and not getting a guilty verdict.

Why is the current system better? Is it less likely that the former would be the choice and that is why we prefer the latter? … is it just common law tradition? or another reason?

• Quote placement as commentary, close to worst case scenario.
• A book discussed.
• more links.
• More on the is “Mr Obama” a socialist, into the “sort of” category.
• Mr Obama and the Democrats in general on energy. Sort of in the “not getting it” category.
• A litany of reasons to vote for Mr Obama … from the right.
• What is holy … and the vote.
• A question.
• Same sex marriage … not about same sex marriage.
• Weather news … not exactly global warming, no?
• No ties, just $800k, which might be called “a tie” I’d think. It seems the “pathological liar” is, alas, Mr Obama.
• On Mrs Palin as type.
• Against the “it was the blogs” meme regarding Joe Wurzelbacher.
• Sense and politics, from Mr Auden.
• Pick one Tuesday.
• Again, imagine for a moment the tables turned, and the “club” doing the same regarding Mr Obama. OK or not?
• Pigs on islands.
• Recovery. I’ve never done an ice-bath and I’m not sure I wanna. I might try some of the others though.
• Up next from Islam.

Gotta run, so … y’all get the unedited list. That to say, as explanation, the weekday “things heard” post is culled from a longer list on my personal blog … edited for audience and a less “personal” view. If you’d prefer the unedited list to be the norm, let me know in the comments (or if you prefer the shorter list let me know that too).

This morning I linked Brandon on the 5-d vs 2-d axis of morality used by the right vs the left in the divide we have in society. Brandon suggests, and commenter JA seems to essentially concur (and if he doesn’t I’ll hear about it right off I expect), that the purity axis is the most problematic for us “post-moderns” and that this notion is entirely rejected by the liberal. For context, the 2 axis for morality on the left is harm and fairness, and the 5 on the right are harm, fairness, in-group, authority, and purity.

But that doesn’t seem right to me. That is, I think the liberals in our midst say that they reject purity as a moral factor but in practice they do not.

What do we mean by purity? Brandon suggests:

To make a purity work as a moral category, you need the idea that people can exert a morally corrosive influence on another, and, even more, that you can be exerting such an influence, or be receiving such an influence, completely independently of any intention you may have or deliberate choice you may make.

Blue laws and other codes regulating behavior count among these sorts of ways we legalize notions of purity. For an extreme example, none right nor left, would condone public sexual intercourse or drug usage in places frequented by children. Why not? Could it be that this is a notion that this would be “a morally corrosive influence” intentional or not? Indeed it is. This is purity. This notion of purity is shared by the left in practice, but in rhetoric they deny it.

It might also be suggested that the left’s increasing sensitivity to more and more different notions of “harm” is a reaction to rejecting rhetorically and logically the other 3 axis of morality, including purity. In the context of such a lack, the remaining to “axis” need to be stretched and expanded to fill the logical gap provided by the other.

One thing I fear if Mr McCain wins as compared to a possible victory in by Mr Obama. If Mr McCain wins, I think the left will go absolutely insane. If Mr Obama wins on the other hand, my impression is that conservatives (such as myself) will just hunker down for 4 years of bad policy, increased racial tensions, higher taxes, and other similear consequences of electing an inexperienced academic to the the Presidency. But … if you thought the left and their BDS was a problem for national discourse on Mr Bush’s re-election I fear such anger will increase far more if Mr McCain wins this election.

So, to that point, I’ll take a comment survey. If the “other guy” wins, what would be your dominant emotional response.

For the record, I think mine would be, the “oh, crap” sensation when standing near or in striking range of a tottering shelf or pile.

• Sexual mores and the fault line and more on that fault line and  5-d or 2-d morality.
• Spreading the wealth and some founders quotes. And considering consequences of the same.
• All or none, no?
• Secrets, anonymity, and “send Frank a secret”.
• Green and concert going.
• On being sans salt.
• Time and regret.
• More links.
• Oil and canvas yet again.

In the realm of alternate electoral methods, the somewhat “out there” novel Courtship Rite by (if I recall the mathematician) Donald Kingsbury. In this science fiction novel set an a colonized planet quite a number of customs have arisen among the humans living there that are very alien to our customs today. One of the societies, from which a number of our protagonists derive, for example practices polygamy as well as cannibalism. There is actually a logical reason for the latter, being that on this alien world most animal and plant life is poisonous to the colonists … and there is no meat available other than man for consumption. Anyhow, that is not the point for today’s little essay. Given the current season and year in the States it might be more topical to offer some of Mr Kingsbury’s unusual suggestions for government.

In an age where the Democrats urge universal (and in fact arguably foreign) enfranchisement and participation in our elections the suggestion in Courtship Rite is quite the reverse. The radical society in that culture was a full participatory democracy … with a catch. On laws, one could only vote on their passing if one was an expert on that particular law. How did one become an expert. By becoming a participant in the discussions involved in framing the text of that law and in discussion on its merits, consequences, and implementation. Anybody could vote on any issue and law, but in order to vote, one had to become knowledgeable and and expert in that.

Further, the executive as well as selected in another manner. Mr Kingsbury suggests essentially that one of the primary qualities this society felt was necessary in a leader or the executive was to be able to accurately predict the unfolding of political and global political trends. People who wished to become executive submitted to a repository, dated predictions of future events. There was likely some (but the details of implementation were left to the reader) weighting of predictions based on the importance of the event and how far in advance the prediction was posted. Whomever had the highest score at this “prediction” game was the Executive. Any citizen could call for a “re-tally” like a vote of no-confidence and possibly in that way remove the current leader. Of course, one way to get predictions to come true, is to make predictions and then work to make them come true. In this way, the Executive very often had a good deal of influence which enabled him to have his predictions fall in line.