Continuing the debates:

Arguably the very first big decision a President must make is select his running mate. Can you indicate three most important criteria you see in your selection of a running mate.

Good morning.

1. Ya throw like a gurl … with diagrams.
2. A feminist lesbian who didn’t get the memo that homosexuality is not a choice.
3. Slurp.
4. A little pro-google humor.
5. Pedagogy with a bang.
6. Elementary math.
7. For the conservative fence sitters.
8. A little conservation on the range.
9. At the end of the day (not the end of days).
10. For the teacher who perhaps unintentionally labels himself and his students as diseases.
11. Consider the drone, actually I think mass bombings of populations in WWII were later shown to have the wrong effect, i.e., they hardened not softened the will of the people. What is the psychological effect of drone attacks vs guided manned planes vs infantry?
12. OOh, Ms Warren tries the Dukakis tank picture opportunity, which worked so so well. I wonder if she can double clutch? Actually, I’m certain she can’t. What I really wonder is if she knows what that means.
13. Bad wrapping around to good.

Continuing (for a while … if this keeps getting ignored I’ll probably stop) the debate … a question for our candidates:

Strategy amounts to setting long term goals and objectives, tactics is the means of getting from here to there. Arguably we’ve been without a coherent Middle East strategy for decades, and we’ve replacing any strategy with a disconnected set of of short term tactical responses to developing situations. What would you identify as the key elements of a US Middle East strategy, Could you briefly describe what you envision as our strategic goals and objectives for the region?

Follow up: What do you see as the first tactical step moving in that direction?

Woo hoo! Another week.

1. Rehabilitating the term servant.
2. Is outrage?
3. An interesting line of thought,  which brought this notion to me. Performance enhancing drugs keep you awake, make you stronger, make you more alert. How about a drug that made you more ethical? What would that feel like? Be like? Would it be illegal?
4. Considering Cinderella (HT: Miss Minerva)
5. Swap in motion.
6. Tool time meets the wheelchair.
7. OK, we’ve seen everywhere that Mr Romney paid just over 14% in taxes … did you see just as widely that he gave just under 30% to charity? We have deductions for charity via itemization … how’d that figure in to the 14%? Why is that not mentioned? Could it be media bias?
8. Speaking of media bias …
9. Adaptation and learning.
10. The world’s best dad in pictures.
11. I’m struggling to make sense of this point of view. Let’s review, a Coptic Christian ex-pat disgruntled by intolerance in his homeland makes a home-made film, which is used as a proxy to spur more violence … and an ad putting forth the point of view that religious intolerance should not be tolerated. So, is the ad censuring both sides?
12. Because they’re stupid and/or misguided and/or evil? You pick.

Good morning to all.

1. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but of course two wrights make an airplane.
2. Bang! (or bud-duh bud-duh &etc)
3. So, do you sue the algorithm or the teeming millions whose prior search made the algorithm decide that’s likely?
4. But where is the cunning plan?
5. Speaking of Black Adder and cunning plans … I’ll be this is also part of the cunning plan known as unaffectionately as Obamacare.
6. Glass houses, stones, throwing, and all that.
7. The generation of love, once removed is the generation of spite and hate?
8. If you don’t laugh at the last picture, either you missed the movie or you have no sense of humor.
9. Of brain and mind … a book.
10. Fallacy alert, you can leave your job, ergo it’s not coercion and don’t pretend it is.
11. Mr Sandefur is a Creedal libertarian, except there’s no actual creed … that part is just smoke and mirrors. From the same source, one might note that concealed carry becomes far easier for gals in full Islamic regalia.
12. Vote for the communists.
13. Of working teats and the work-place.

A blog post out there on the Interwebs asked what question you might ask in one of the Presidential debates. I’m going to try to post, uhm, one every day or so. So here we go …

Question: One of the oft spoken assumptions about the current election centers on the economy and employment. Can you identify the most important policy changes we need to push in order to put the US on the right track. In this context, please identify the most important item on which you believe you and your opponent are in agreement and the most important one on which you do not agree.

Good, mid-morning.

1. Black is the new black.
2. Economics and our regrettable President.
3. Cinema.
4. Red meat and wine … instead of chips, dogs, and beer.
5. Some Kipling for ya.
6. On the Satanic verses.
7. Not micro-brewery, but micro-foundry?
8. WW-II plan meets the SA-7.
9. Why global warming became climate change.
10. A new type of vehicle.
11. Silly man … raising the percentage makes it worse (for your side). But no, I don’t find it credible that 94% of the population gets more than it gives to the feds (especially when most of the middle is paying almost 30% to them).
12. So, was that the plan?
13. Color us unsurprised.
14. When in Rome.
15. Smells bad.

Wednesday already. Imagine that.

1. Situation or tribe?
2. Missing the threat part, i.e., “because if you don’t people might get hurt.”
3. Raising kids and threats to their safety.
4. Added Vitamin D?
5. To fixie or not fixie.
6. Almost vegan wine.
7. Ironic, eh?
8. Fortunately use has more than one meaning.
9. Moving on to the substance instead of the hand-wringing phase regarding Mr Romney’s remarks.
10. Now here’s something to work with, I’m going to try write a bit on that tonight and come up with a series of my questions.
11. Probability and number theory.
12. Mr Obama continues the “its unfair when you do it” ignoring the we do it to part.
13. Of free speech and speech codes and … actions.
14. Caption this, err, these.
15. Someone forgets in 1945 we were producing a major carrier every 6 weeks and a small one once per week. How long would it take to ramp up to that or could we even approach that again?

1. Left and right reactions to 47% compared. Quite the contrast.
2. Justice and our reactions to events in the Middle East.
3. More on the same.
4. And our administration’s reaction … so … do you think this will encourage or discourage further uprisings and atrocities?
5. Sealed!
6. I’d never heard of Fabianism. Had you?
7. So … will this ruffle Amsterdam?
8. Employment and personal habits.
9. As my youngest begins learning to drive … a drivers ed of a different sort.
10. The Ryan syndrome.
11. Who is to protect? Hmm, I thought history and Magdeburg was the answer. From this book (and oddly enough I didn’t verify it’s correctness) I learned that after the tragedy at Magdeburg modern diplomacy was born … in part because the conflict was so horrible and that it was realized if only people had talked a bit, they’d have learned they weren’t actually on different sides. Yet … do we even need diplomats to be physically on site any more in the information age?
12. As life imitates … Spirited Away?
13. Banks without seat belts.
14. Plagarism.

Good morning.

1. A linguistic shift noted … and some exercise advice.
2. Lying or just inconsistent … at the same time calling for a more open internet and clamping down harder.
3. Yes the violence was a pretext. But no, I don’t think it was a pretext to get the West to do anything, sorry. Apologies by the White House and calls to pull You Tube (see above) videos are feckless and stupid primarily because this wasn’t about insults or disrespect for religion. This was nothing but power consolidation internally by Islamist groups, anything else is pretext. Explain the rational for treating a pretext as the primary reason? When historically was treating with the pretext as cause the better play?
4. More on that here.
5. And silly notions on international norms.
6. While we all ignore stuff like this.
7. Heh.
8. Obvious or not?
9. Waking up lucky.
10. Data glut.
11. Flexibility.
12. Hours as barter.

OK, been busy. Links?

1. What does it mean to be American. The conceit that this is unique is, well, probably not unique. Recall the book I mentioned a few weeks ago … Mr Snyder’s Reconstruction of Nations? This has relevance, recall one of the puzzles is how Poland and Lithuania arrived at their national identity … recall a founding “poem which all Polish students learn in school” has in its opening stanza “Lithuania my fatherland” and … when Lithuania became a nation few people spoke Lithuanian … in the cities they spoke Polish, Yiddish, Russian and Belorussian was spoken in the country and they had similar religious divisions. Nations based on an idea is not unique as we pretend. Our notions of its uniqueness relies on our ignorance of history.
2. Credentials and skillz.
3. The reality based side of the aisle strikes again.
4. Moving right.
5. On responses to killings. I’d note that in a prior admin, Mr Bush was always slow to respond … and the later responses by the adminstration might be better. But the poster is right, we don’t as a nation “deplore any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others” in point of fact we defend the freedom of speech … with sharp pointy sticks.
6. Oooh, one for the Palin fans.
7. For the Darwinist ethics conversation. A social Darwinist it seemed to me might run with this.
8. Woo hoo.
9. Grist for the abortion debate.
10. Of logic and boxes.
11. Female protagonists and Disney.
12. Ivy league.
13. News that will be buried by the left wing press.
14. Which Jack?

Good morning.

1. Four riders?
2. And seven strawmen.
3. Here’s the “play the race card by claiming the other guy is playing the race card” card.
4. Fear the ‘stache.
5. A book noted.
6. An election and doom if either party wins as the prediction.
7. This is not unrelated.
8. Best? Best!?
9. An academic economic result and a media bias experiment in progress.
10. Fiction and the Dems convention.
11. The sopranos and Iraq.
12. A question for the recall Walker crowd.
13. So … how do you make that argument?

Your neighbor across the aisle does not. Here is some unsolicited advice for the left wing on this topic. If you really think this is a problem, and you want everyone, not just your side of the aisle to push for it futilely … Here’s a newsflash for y’all. You’re selling it wrong.

Look at us over here on the right. We think the space program was cool. We love going to flight museums and wistfully wishing we (as a nation) were still flying SR-71s (RS-71 dammit, stupid Presidents). We gawk at daisy cutters and talk about yields and payloads. While we might take up on those government goodies that are “free” it sticks in our craw and we wish that ‘ol time Yankee rugged individualism wasn’t dying out, killed by bureaucratic mind-numbing cookie cutter schools among other things. Read these two books, here and here. That’s good reading. So, do you like Bob? We do.

In a past era, a Democratic President challenged his nation to go to the moon, not because it was easy but because it was hard. You want a nation to get behind you with a climate crises. Challenge them that way. Tell ’em to go out and fix it, not by sucking back our economy and going all green-ified on us, scrimping out toilet paper curbing consumption of interesting toys and things to do.

No. Fix it the old fashioned way, with a hammer, tongs, and big bad-ass technology. Challenge us that way, and you might get a rise out of us.

Of course it might alienate you’re side of the aisle, but you can’t break an omelette without making eggs, or something like that.

(with tongue firmly in cheek … and attempting to ignore the silly season somewhat)

These three day weekends … really shorten the week, I mean it’s Wednesday already.

1. I don’t feel the belonging thing they talk about.
2. Fisking Ms Obama.
3. Feeling the pain.
4. Just zipping along.
5. He “duped” me? Huh? Seriously?
6. Persuasion.
7. Learning to learn is the main point … the content is less important.
8. A question for the Keynesians.
9. Photo ID and the Democrats.
10. Who’s important.
11. Climate change and hurricane strength and frequency. Wow, that trend is so very clear.
12. The problem with complaining about a fictional Obama is that Obama did it first.

So, d’ya have a good laborious day yesterday? Munch munch munch.

1. Yikes.
2. Sneeze. (yes I’m very very allergic to those)
3. Liberal global energy policies and unintended consequences.
4. A park to confuse the urban liberal.
5. Some reading enjoyment in the pipeline.
6. Well, by one name it sounds like megalomania.
7. Some advice for the college bound.
8. On being responsive to your constituents.
9. I have a sneaking suspicion that the 2nd problem is not specific enough to answer … but I’ve not thought it through well enough. The problem as stated doesn’t state that the machines are identical. If for example the machines pipeline their production (machine 1’s output goes into machine 2 and so on … first off, if you start it up, machines 2-5 have idle time at the onset (unless they are pre-filled with production … which also isn’t stated). Additinonally there is no indication that the added 95 machines have the optimal “type” distribution for efficiency, as a worst case all additional machines are of type #1 and adding 95 more of them improves your rate not at all).
10. This complaint works just as well for the open immigration crowd.
11. Not a Democrat talking point in the wake of the GOP convention.
12. Isaac and priority.
13. Our national disease.
14. Swivel plane.
15. I’d weight the likely men to the earlier eras, TR is late … but was out and about a lot. How about not during their tenure but at their respective prime-of-life? Who then and if/how would that change your answer?