Good morning.

1. All those freshman starting school away from home … parents? The same everywhere.
2. A book recommended.
3. Harvard in the news, noted here and here.
4. Charity, culture, economics and more.
5. Not charity?
6. Obama and measuring success.
7. Sometimes the “A” for effort is all that matters. The winsome Ms Olson long ago accepted my proposal at a horrible failure of home cooked dinner. Only the soup was edible (actually the soup was amazing … everything else completely failed).
8. Journalism and disaster.
9. More on the GM plant closing that you haven’t seen elsewhere.
10. Comments?
11. How not to accuse Mr Ryan of being “Randian”.

Good morning.

1. Windly things.
2. That cycle of life thing.
3. Syria.
4. Legal eagles (beagles?) talk hermeneutics.
5. A Mormon crosses the Tiber and talks about it.
6. Speaking of Mormons, apparently they’re Western WASPS.
7. While I’m not enamored of requiring by fiat what is discussed here … this, alas, is high on my I’d-really-like one (but won’t be able to afford) list and not my will buy when available list.
8. Preparation.
9. How not to deal with local OWS behavior.
10. So … now the “reality based party” will all jump behind vouchers?

Go and do the right thing, eh?

Slept in. Oops. Still at job site here in Sterling. Anyhow, another quick push for the morning.

1. Another sort of race.
2. Of taxes and offerings.
3. Remember how Germany got rid of nuclear power and went to solar and wind. How’s that working out?
4. Entrepreneurship in Iraq.
5. I too cannot listen to prepared speeches, especially when interrupted every 10 seconds by applause. Bonus, a bit for the Palin fans.
6. Not quite the Le Brea Tar Pits (translation: the the tar tar pits). But close.
7. The auto-green interests and the two candidates.
8. A tight squeeze, helps to be boneless.
9. A prize-winner and some of his work explained.
10. More similarities than differences.
11. A question asked.
12. Playing the game as insight into a person.
13. Sometimes Japan is just weird.
14. I bought the first book last night.
15. TARP and a success story that wasn’t TARP-like.
16. Just say no.
17. Social welfare.

Gotta run. Have a good one!

Good morning. I’m short on time … so I’ll try to be quick. I apologize in advance for errors, of meaning and syntax.

1. Water and ballistics.
2. Rhetoric and … I think a reference to the remarks made by Mr Akin.
3. Is this where Illinois corruption skews the pictures?
4. So, does that make the recent German law anti-Semitic? Or just disputed medical results.
5. Relativism and the term “safe”.
6. I wonder if that includes non-government R&D funding? And if so, how the heck would they measure it?
7. No silly, the Democratic base is soon-to-be unemployed journalists and union workers.
8. Noetic mapping.
9. Getting rid of those gomers … and liberal bigotry.
10. Dishonesty in political commercials … I’d have thought the unusual thing would be to look deeper and find honesty.
11. I really really need to dig into Christos Yannaros and how ethics changes when your idea of person changes.
12. ’cause here is where you find freedom (freedom not from rights and choice, but communion in love).
13. So, why do you think why?

Gotta run. That took 10 minutes. Whew.

Yikes. Busy busy.

1. Climate changers and the law.
2. Exactly a point I’ve been (unsuccessfully I think) been trying to make repeatedly.
3. Well, I wish I had time to listen to this.
4. Those three young girls rioting in Russia cathedrals. Imagine for a moment that the Polish President, Mr Komorowski, was a practicing catholic and some rock group interrupted a catholic service of remembrance for the slain at Auschwitz. Would they be defended strongly … or would even the left suggest that there is a place and a time for political activism.  Read the link for some context.
5. Speaking of which.
6. Eat and run … yer not doing it right.
7. Remember the press is very very blue. Not so much the readers.
8. Using your hammer to hammer.
9. RepRap? Never heard of it, but it sounds interesting.
10. Trade wars.
11. Educational?
12. That cheap overseas labor … fixed. See more here? And more.
13. Mr Obama against Obamacare on principles.
14. On the left side of the aisle, saying thank you = sucking up. Weird.

Good morning

1. Forgotten people?
2. Economic growth.
3. Let’s see, asymmetric information is a reason for higher taxation? Like the government has really proved it spends its money wisely.
4. Next target for computer security attacks.
5. Voter ID.
6. Last words of one man, still not as witty as Oscar Wilde, who had the funniest last words I’ve ever heard (“Either that wallpaper goes, or I’ll go. (then he died)”)
7. Why all them great books?
8. Some baseball quips and anecdotes.
9. Religion and the law in Pakistan.
10. Not Maize, Taize.
11. Of culture and evangelism.

Well, the morning and lunchtime were busy … and Wednesday I’m back out to Western Illinois. Tuesday … well well. About six weeks ago my eldest very very introverted daughter suddenly became a baseball (White Sox) fan. So … we’re (a) learning about baseball and (b) going to the Sox/Yankees game Tuesday night with a pair of free upper deck tix. So now I’m paying for those decades a cyclist thinking that baseball is almost not a sport (and don’t let me get started on golf).

1. On prayer and fasting.
2. Tuff enuff?
3. From the side of the aisle hiding the Holodomor and Katyn forest deniers … just treatment of some other deniers celebrated. In that light, I’ll recommend this book Bloodlands, which I read recently.
4. And a little context for the above.
5. Lilith.
6. On the monastic calling.
7. More books.
8. Religion poisons everything … or perhaps not.
9. A crazy way to make a living, eh?
10. GM
11. The left and right ‘splained to a youngster.

And now my other daughter wants to borrow this computer … so, perhaps more tomorrow.

Still on evening posting schedule, probably for the next two weeks.

1. Some back history on high speed rail and its US development (or lack thereof).
2. Light rock making news.
3. Puppies can be cute …. and dogs again for your back to school crowd (my kids start tomorrow).
4. Three notes on Mr Ryan … which for me the most interesting point was the remark about weak (perception or reality) that Congress has gotten. Seems to me the John Adams prediction of executive becoming royalty/tyrant (or the Roman weak-Congress allowing the start of the Empire). For those who worry about “climate change” this climate is one that will kill us first.
5. And a comparison of Ryan and Obama, and their early life.
6. The weather service bucks up for … what?
7. Mr Lincoln.
8. Ah, but there is the immediate and logical reply, “if you say that … you’re a bigot.” And you’d be right. Bigotry in its essence is condemning a group en masse where you should be judging people as individual. When you make the statement linked, you are condemning a group in exactly that way.
9. Search or not?

I’m going to be working early this week.

1. But we can start off with some verse.
2. “An atheist” abandons (silliness) doesn’t mean they all do. Next … maybe they’ll come around to realizing the foundations of their precious enlightenment and scientific revolution was Christian in origin.
3. Inventing ritual and rite didn’t work in post-revolutionary France. Those who don’t know history, condemned to repeat.
4. Camouflage … do y’all approve? Good idea or not?
5. When politics becomes a thing defining enemies … keep these handy.
6. Some striking photographs.
7. Arrgh. Faster to production … please? And speaking of faster …
8. Why even think of doing a hit piece at all? It makes no sense at all to me.
9. Not-so-deadly weapons.
10. Religion and our drive-by media.
11. A picture makes an argument.
12. Remember the Obama Cairo thing, where he talked up the accomplishments of Islamic science? In this context, that sounds like talking up the new discoveres in treatment of hypothermia advanced by Dr Mengele.
13. Free speech and academia? Not so much any more. And guess what … it’s not just academia.
14. The placard linked is not unrelated to the above.
15. Obama continues lying. Gosh … what a surprise.
16. Norway and its police.
17. Drones not in the sky.

Good morning.

1. The kid picked last in sports considers athletics in the context of the Olympics.
2. Praise of the engineer.
3. What I call “lies” apparently is just post-modernism writ large.
4. Conservatism and civic pluralism … a tension to resolve? My solution is empowering the local community to be different, with the caveat that the door remain unlocked.
5. What faith isn’t … the “ability not to panic” might derive from Dostoevsky/Zizoulas’ notions of ontological freedom which in turn connects to faith. So is the sign wrong or right?
6. Short answer, yes.
7. The modern state.
8. A book recommended.
9. Here’s another.
10. So, you wanna run?
11. Deadlines and Afghanistan.
12. 20% unemployment in a region with jobs aplenty.
13. Paris and the Romany.
14. Maximum pessimum.
15. What’s missing is a digression into what single-action, double-action and the recoil driven double->single feature of the semi-automatic all mean. It’s not that complicated. A double action revolver means the pulling of the trigger cocks the hammer and then releases it. This takes significant force, which lead to the double action revolver, in which cocking the hammer was separated, and pulling the trigger only released the sear (which takes far less force). A semi-automatic is just a double action pistol in which the recoil (after the first shot) cocks the hammer for the next shot.
16. Hmm, that hits a little close to home.
17. Chick-fil-A and charity … the largest chunk … toward a marriage counseling charity. Gosh, how outrageous.
18. Unanticipated consequences.

Good morning.

1. Our (non-) reality based state department.
2. Yes, even granting the premise, the conclusion is not warranted. “Reduce civilian casualties” is not the goal of combat, or at least in the short term. Most of the operations that drones are used are COIN operations … there may be a place for drones in a good COIN campaign … but it’s not as obvious as you would suspect I deem. What reduces casualties the most is the end of conflict … which may or not be helped by drones vs not-drones.
3. On getting started …
4. On the other hand, some kids (one of mine for example) really do suffer from real mental illnesses, i.e., depression. When you have a fifth grade kid who won’t get out of bed or do anything because of malaise and no inducement of any sort will even pique here interest … something is wrong and it’s not merely spanking.
5. The Olympics and other metrics for medal counting. Go Grenada!
6. Pythagorean records? Huh? Never heard of it.
7. Mr Rajan moving into the hot seat.
8. An abortion doctor slips.
9. Ms Althouse wonders how much you bench press, or something like that.
10. Hand drawn!
11. So, a Christian terrorist … but wouldn’t that need to involve Christianity in some actual manner for the adjective to apply?
12. Remembrance of the Great War.
13. So, “we have to do some soul searching” … what do you got for that? Does that make any sense to you?
14. Nope. No voter fraud ever. At all. Nada. Got nothing.
15. Bike tech on Mars.
16. GM, our administration’s make-it-up-as-you-go-along bankruptcy plan and unintended consequences.

Good morning.

1. Talking about logical fallacies (arguing from analogy). I don’t think the free-will/moral responsibility argument I make suffers from this (to whit: premise 1 – moral responsibility is a social construct. premise 2 – there are social constructs which things without free will can evidence. conclusion – therefore it is tenable that moral responsibility is independent of free will)
2. Social media and the Wisconsin shooter.
3. Short answer … culture.
4. One of the two distortions of big money and medicine. The other being the big money sink that constitutes liability protection and suit.
5. Curiously, Chaucer goes to Mars.
6. Why does your baby cry?
7. Faith and distortions of what constitutes faith.
8. Apparently, trawling Mr Reid’s writings for amazingly stupid statements isn’t hard.
9. “Very popular” … which really means ignored and off the everyone’s radar.
10. Heh.
11. On yesterday’s feast.
12. And another milestone for yesterday’s date.
13. Sportsmanship and the Olympics, a high note.
14. School under tyranny.
15. Forgetting concealed carry is so that girls can carry.

Good morning.

1. Scientific method.
2. Some thoughts on the Olympics. And this too, which raises and interesting question … from what cultural change from the Greeks comes our passion for team vs individual sport?
3. Quiet and clean, the Father’s called it dispassion.
4. An Obamacare conversation recalled …
5. and not unrelated, some anticipation of unanticipated consequences.
6. Let’s see the left thinks voter ID is racist … so, will they admit this is also racism by the same token?
7. And the destruction of one argument against voter ID succinctly put.
8. Shape and selection.
9. Perhaps (as I’ve suggested) to stay in the game TSA needs to move to information tech from search tech. Or more likely a combination of both.
10. Horrors! Global warming and its consequences.
11. As usual, lead with a lie ’cause that’s the road to credibility. Seriously, when it’s very cold … that’s weather. When it’s warm … that’s climate. Consistency is king or can any one say “confirmation bias”?
12. Prototype and what will it cost? Seriously.
13. Finally, a better response to the “what policy” suggestion best should come from the Aurora shooting … not guns, but better mental health care.
14. So, riddle me this, how does that fall into the DHS mandate.
15. Of Syria and intervention.
16. 25% of Americans make over 250k per year? I didn’t know that.
17. Talking of horror, the past, and what to make of it.
18. Worship isn’t about feeling good.
19. Ephraim!

Good morning.

1. Waterless fracking … so now the environmentalists will all be on board, eh?
2. Gender and the military.
3. Tactics and North Korea.
4. Some call Mr Obama a “moderately conservative Democrat” … really?
5. Gaffes and Mr Romney’s foreign trip.
6. Johnny can’t read.
7. So, can you see the Rubicon from here?
8. On liberal Christianity, a discussion noted.
9. Manufacturing and the EU.
10. 63 days remembered.
11. 100 years ago.
12. Twain said there were three kinds of lies, how about three kinds of secrets?

Good morning.

1. You didn’t build that goes viral … and I suppose the rejoinder is “yah, so therefore I won’t vote for ‘im”
2. Experts vs algorithm and yet another book to read.
3. Thoughts on voting.
4. The future television.
5. Noted 100th  anniversary of birth, here and here.
6. Consistency is king, from the guy who advocates bigger government and spending in good times and in bad.
7. Examining the “liberals are more intelligent meme”, I especially enjoyed the opening quotes in which the definition of “liberal” fits conservatives better than not.
8. Ethnic ruffles, as an mostly irrelevant aside, I really like singing Serbian liturgical music when we do so.
9. Trumping shooting buddies in the face and skinning moose.
10. So the reformation has rejected monasticism, is this why?