I hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial day (at least those in the (US not in retail)).

1. The test approaches, fun with groups.
2. Guns, technology, and considerations of unintended consequences.
3. Up and coming blog post materiel.
4. A cunning plan … if there ever was one such.
5. Terror makes its next move on the strategic board.
6. An unfortunate glitch for the argument that the reason for abortion is lack of contraception.
7. An expert looks at the Zimmerman/Martin kerfuffle and evidence and suggests that Mr Zimmerman will be exonerated.
8. Well, the US figured out pretty darn quickly that a loose Confederacy of States wouldn’t work well, the EU is finding out why the hard way.
9. Death and the gulag in 2012.
10. Lean logistics in the 1860s.
11. Our foreign policy and hard choices not made (extemporizing is not the hard choice).
12. My opponent is an idiot is a yet another rhetorical fallacy. Or is it worse? The operating assumption that disagreements in our world stem from incomplete knowledge is very flawed.
13. Is outrage. And my local defender of regulation-is-a-good-thing should be chastened.

For Memorial Day.

1. From one of the best conservative prose poets.
2. A flyer.
3. Meta-links.
4. A poster.
5. A photo.
6. This photo I found the most striking.

Good morning.

1. Of Party and Church … and of course the rejoinder to the bumper sticker is “of course not, he’s a Monarchist” (Christ is Lord and King).
2. Speaking of bumper stickers.
3. A counter for the “its the social trend/majority” SSM argument.
4. Realtime displays of live data.
5. Cricket race support for the basis of my question on OWS posted earlier.
6. For the numbers fans out there.
7. Call a spade a spade, please.
8. Art imitates art … last night as this was the final day of school, our family watched our weekend movie night film, which was War of the Arrows … which I recommend if you like action films.
9. Homeless but not mindless, in fact quite clever.
10. A home project.
11. A side effect of faith? But, this effect is not helpful.

Well, I’ve got a long drive this morning … so it’ll have to be quick.

1. Some synchronicity noted: Such as when “you are” and “u” “r” convolve which is not unrelated to this.
2. All-you-can eat (two thoughts … all-you-can-eat does (and should not) mean eat-all-you-can … it’s not healthy and that in turn is the answer to the posters question). But this in turn is not unrelated to this.
3. For those unconvinced that the NYTimes isn’t batting for just one side in the elections.
4. Political authority and real authority are not the same thing.
5. If you consider where grant money comes from … would this spell the end of the journal? And is that a bad thing?
6. Democrats firmly behind big corn conglomerates. Money well spent apparently.
7. The election and the South this is on the same point.
8. Some suggestions for graduation improvements.
9. Apparently liberals (a) de-bias issues at the high court uniformly, i.e., when the case is one they want in front of the court and (b) are unaware that cases that come before the court arise not from the court vetting laws that Congress passes, but depend instead on people filing suit who are not members of the same court.
10. 2 more million of the forgotten-if-not-Jewish victims of WWII genocide.

Protest movements as evidenced most recently by the Occupy movement basically amount to soft terrorism. That is to say soft in the sense that it is terrorism with muted, understated violence. Instead of blowing up bus stops, eateries, and commuter throughways, they clog them up, pollute them, and fill them with the smell of human effluence unwashed bodies and worse. An even milder yet more understated violence is approaching inexorably toward us in the US … that being the soft nuisance that pretends to be an election season, in which our information channels instead of our commuter ways and shops will be filled with the annoyance of politicians grabbing for our attention.

What puzzles me in this matter is the mystery of why anybody thinks this works. It beggars my imagination how somebody thinks that annoying people will generate sympathy for their cause. This goes for all three of these types of terrorism, from the hard terror of bombs and the homicidal mania that constitutes the al-Qaeda and Palestinian flavors of terror to push polling, TV ads, and blind phone calls.

Is it all just a gamble? Is the gamble that their actions have two parts … that they will innervate and garner support amongst those that are sympathetic more than they will annoy and turn away those that are either uncommitted or against their cause. Because, from where I sit all these movements certainly do the latter. For myself, I’ll admit I have no dog in the Middle East Israel/Palestine disagreements but the Palestinian violence certainly is a convincing argument against the justice and rationality of the Palestinian cause. Likewise, I’m would be sympathetic to the notion that jobs and employment and getting ahead is going to be harder for my children than it was for me. But the OWS movement has certainly soured any sympathy for supporting any of those knuckleheads in any material fashion. Is there any evidence that these methods work? That they don’t do the obvious, that is turn more people against you than not?

There are a species of novels celebrating the anti-hero. Are people so used to this sort of thing that they figure we’ll root for, support, vote for, and otherwise follow you if you anti-advertise?

Good morning.

1. An interesting question at the end.
2. Somebody from South Carolina needs to get his facts straight. Taking a failing company and holding it for 8 years trying to give it a chance, is not corporate “rape.” Blaming someone for the eventual failure, which occurs two years after you leave … if the former is rape, what is this mis-characterization? Blood slander?
3. So. Constitutional or just wrong?
4. Why are people so adverse to noting that there are physiological differences between peoples that can have an impact on physical and mental performance.
5. I wonder if this Bishop would be allergic to this Akathist service?
6. Is the question here that you cannot base your meta-ethics on religion? Visit Mount Athos.
7. Tragedy of the commons (ToC), if government was the solution to ToC then why do Communist countries have a worse problem with that than not.
8. Free will.
9. Oh, that’s just silly … nobody’s going to kill the President … Biden is his insurance plan. No assassin in his right mind wants that nitwit to have real power.
10. Mr Obama goes after straw men on the campaign trail. If that were his only reason, then it wouldn’t make sense. If the predicate is false, of course the statement is true. Alas, it is also meaningless.
11. Lunch for the Klingon.

Good morning.

1. How to anger the ordinary man. Tell him his taxes are paying for propaganda to sell policies he doesn’t support.
2. Inter state becomes Intra state.
3. For those still following the Zimmerman/Martin kerfuffle.
4. The Bain attack theme and holding the Democrat party line.
5. “Two tiered” class pricing.
6. The diversity mania and higher ed.
7. Gay in the business world.
8. The don’t make the connections because you don’t have to make good arguments in the echo chamber.
9. Well, for those who think “nonlegal arguments” suffice against the Mandate Constitutional challenge, a slam dunk rebuttal of those notions.
10. Capital shifts.

Good morning.

1. Wind and the photograph. Blaarrrrgggh.
2. Our government, standing firmly against free trade.
3. “Strategy needs enemies” … uhm, a strategy is a broad plan and a goal. I think enemies are not required for either.
4. The problem isn’t that Hobbes and Locke lead to unfortunate conclusions, it’s that their premises were wrong (read some Bertrand de Jouvenel … try On Power as a starter).
5. Born in Kenya … why the lie?
6. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. (and yes a few weeks ago, we watched The Shining for our Family Movie Night). This week we watched Say Anything.
7. Economics and the cloud.
8. Horses asses in space.
9. Kierkegaard on confession. Oh, and Brandon has links too!
10. The war on poverty.
11. Flaunting IQ.
12. A $64 fine?
13. Another book to read.
14. And one more.

Good morning.

1. Grist for the solipsist.
2. Well there you go, the “best case (straw man) argument against gay marriage is unsustainable.” Who’d have thought that straw man arguments were so weak.
3. Why the “H” sound in Greek is just a diacritical mark at the start of the word.
4. The real question is why liberals self label as the “reality based party”.
5. A first question here … try this experiment. Go to a gym with a heavy bag. Start punching. See how much and how hard you have to punch … until you get a quarter inch cut on your knuckles. Then consider that bag was man and the damage you just did to it. Now … requite for me how you can figure the laceration on his hands were trivial.
6. Don’t try this at home.
7. Headscarves.
8. Well, you are correct, you are not supposed to say that. Uhm, so don’t.
9. Almost solipsism. Let’s see, what might “agnostic about the existence of the world” mean? Solipsism would be the akin to “atheism over existence” what then is agnosticism?
10. Mr Scalzi started this, I’d have thought “Feminist Philospher’s” would see the problem, but they didn’t. Here’s a hint … the problem is equating winning/success with money and power and not with happiness.
11. “I don’t know” is often followed by “but I can google.”
12. “What I said” … in contrast with our President who has the advantage of having said the opposite as well.
13. I’m unclear on why the disgust. Isn’t that just a chance for testing and witness?
14. The quicksand’s viscosity just lowered for Ms Warren, see here and here.
15. Dating with a bucket of sand with fleas.
16. A song to finish.

At long last …

1. Texting without sight a method … while driving?
2. Of practicing and preaching.
3. So it it witless flaunting of due process or with cognizance?
4. Of ancient arithmetics and modern computers.
5. My name, sinking into obscurity?
6. Well, it may or may not be indicative of Mr Romney’s future prospects, but it certainly says a lot about Mr Obama’s credibility where budget talks are concerned, batting 0 for 600+.
7. I’m skeptical.
8. More micro economics of ranching.
9. Evil?
10. Mercantilism in the White House.
11. Not the Giligan’s Island tour.

Alasadair MacIntyre in his book Whose Justice Whose Rationality demonstrates using ancient political divisions to illustrate how, when meta-ethical differences between groups arise conversation between those groups is difficult. Well, perhaps “difficult” is putting it mildly. We see this today as it unfolds in conversations between those in different sides of the political aisle. Highly paid commenter Boonton on this blog noted recently that the only good arguments concerning SSM are on the pro-SSM side, there are no arguments and only avoidance of the same seen from the right. My response was that the left side of the aisle perceives it this way because they insist on a “small playground”, only debating this issue in the context of their particular meta-ethical context and refusing to step outside. And yes, by analogy, if you assume flat 2-dimensional Euclidean geometry there is no good way to dispute that the the interior angle of a triangle sum to pi. But all geometries are not 2-d Euclidean, in fact the world we live is not. So what follows will be an attempt to bridge that divide, to give a glimpse to the left the basics of the marriage debate as seen from the right. Be warned however, in crossing this bridge there are always hermenuetical difficulties, when speaking across meta-ethical and foundational divisions the same words can be viewed from different context and what is said can easily be misunderstood. That is to say, bear with me … and this gets a little longer than the usual essay … so the rest is below the fold…

Read the rest of this entry

Good morning.

1. Words, authors, and locations.
2. Comin’ at ya.
3. In the wrong black book, recall that one thesis I’m exploring is happiness and individual/wealth based societies vs family/shame based one. Chalk this one up for the family crowd.
4. The budget limit zombie rises again.
5. Let’s see … is it ethical? Is it ethical to drive a model of car that, by comparison, gets better mileage, offers better control, and is substantially cheaper. Is it ethical to not do so?
6. One prediction put down for the record (by a conservative who advocates voting for the sitting President no less).
7. Harvard Law’s minority member.
8. Not a good sign when your model looks quite embarrassed to be there.
9. Will there be an apologetic response from the left?
10. Which one should be coy about admitting belonging?
11. In which little substance is code for full of lies and BS.
12. Food for thought.
13. Bureaucrats, credentialed or not, aren’t the inventors, developers, scientists, and engineers who have (or don’t have) the credentials that actually matter.
14. A glass floor in an unusual setting.
15. On that texting-while-driving crises.

Good morning.

1. Same sex marriage and cricket races … or gosh why are the polls always so wrong (and for political science types … apparently “because polls are astoundingly inaccurate instruments” is not the answer. It’s why we call them cricket races after all.).
2. Mr Krugman beats his wife less these days. Oh, wait that was supposed to be this link. I think however the logical fallacy is the same.
3. Domino effects.
4. A Greek popular singer and a change of lifestyle.
5. The atheist worldview and similarities to fatalism.
6. In our money based culture … putting a value on the homemaker.
7. Of guns, control, and revolution.
8. Soteriology.
9. Income inequality.
10. Trade and a book.
11. How to effectively help the third world.
12. Headlines and unintended consequences (predicted).
13. Heh.

Good morning.

1. Some of the pictures are very funny.
2. Is it that all government expenditures not created equal?
3. This is interesting … apparently antisemitism is a PR problem for the Jews, nothing at all wrong with those who hold or promote those notions. It’s the Jews fault. Strange, a fellow and his family can go to church for decades and hear not almost nothing about same sex, well, anything. Wonder where these people get those notions? Perhaps its not from inside the church, but external slanders? (Replace “Christian” with “Jew” and “antihomosexual” with, well, whatever antisemites gripe about and see if you think the reaction by Mr Schraub would be place the blame on the Jews).
4. Here is more the sort of thing you actually hear in churches.
5. A spy and his cover. In the Bush admin the left went ballistic over the “outing” of Ms Plame … this undercover operative … do you hear the outrage? Neither do I. Perhaps the outrage was political and not about the loss of cover by leaking data to the press? Odd that.
6. Occupy and their faux outrage against big corporations.
7. Dark shadows, then and now and the missing monsters (or monstrous).
8. Our moral president, always doing right by the people.
9. Boys schools and context for the Romney bully kerfuffle.
10. Social construction and empire.
11. Disabilities and happiness.

Good morning.

1. Epistemic insight into that road to serfdom?
2. By your fruit (or not exactly fruit)?
3. Is this on the up and up?
4. Half our electricity … gone? or gone from mind of the left?
5. Hey! I thought Mr Gowers was done with the entertainment. There’s more fun!
6. Saint von Bingen, here and here.
7. Of art, beauty and flaws.
8. Why the horn?
9. Why bother read the fine print … he isn’t an honest speaker in the first place.
10. A language found.
11. A grease, err, Greece fire?
12. An economic indicator?
13. A top ten list.
14. You sir, might be an idiot, I however am a fool.
15. Tombstone.
16. Wind damage.
17. Flexibility and pessimism (or is it realism).

Good morning.

1. Irrespective of the contents of this particular debate, I think Ms Althouse is spot on in noting that any argument that depends/blends on personal anecode is cheapened and weakened. So why is it so often used?
2. Of tea leaves and primaries.
3. And this primary? What of it?
4. A revenue neutral tax? Hows that work? Sounds like no tax at all. Or a linguistic dodge. You can have a revenue neutral tax policy, which entails manipulations of a number of different taxes raising some and lowering others. But you can’t, for example, enact a revenue new tax and have it not be 0. That’s mathematically impossible.
5. A long way of saying pointing out what should be obvious, that the high wage earning management types … work really hard. The pretense is that they don’t work or work very little. That’s amazingly far from the truth.
6. Our state considers its next encroachments on freedom.
7. Reading this, I was wondering if never-had-cable are considered akin to cable cutters?
8. 900k signatures for recall, 1/3 of which didn’t bother even voting in the primary. Odd that.
9. Wrapping up our maths fun for the last week or so.
10. Oh, stop trying to make sense of political rhetoric.
11. Fashion.