The regrettable Mr Edwards, whom the Democrats just recently discovered, is something of a slime-weasel, is in the news as he is accused of campaign finance “irregularities.” Additionally, the left is up and arms over the high court’s rejection of restrictions on corporate contributions to campaigns. Additionally, we have a problem with our deficit. I have a solution for all three.

Let’s get rid of all campaign finance restrictions. Campaign contributions will be considered, in my proposal, as a contribution directly to the person who is running. He can use those funds however he might see fit, for vacations in the South Pacific, an extension on his house, or for campaign ads, campaign gewgaws and literature, or other campaign related activities. This will have several benefits.

1. No silly court related cases like the above.
2. People will think twice about contributing to people of low character.
3. Contributions will be taxed as income (likely as aggressively as lottery income), and as a result, will have a positive impact on our deficit far greater than the “tax-the-rich” proposals on the table.

So, there you go. Campaign finance irregularities. Solved. Everybody can go home happy now.

Or not.

Good morning.

1. Starting on a lighter note …
2. Moving to a patriotic one, albeit not for my country but the sentiments translate (literally).
3. Which leads to my question, not exactly about any particular point made by the linked essay, but on the same topic. So many people, and they might be right for all I know, equate political success directly with campaign spending. How does that work? Just about every ad I’ve seen for candidate A (bought by/paid for by candidate A) shifts me more toward the other side. Every call from candidate A makes me more annoyed with him than not. So how then does spending translate into votes?
4. Love your neighbor dude. Try it.
5. Choice.
6. Can you imagine? Government obstruction? Golly.
7. More here, of a different sort.
8. Ho hum? I didn’t see this in any papers. Have you? How about on your other news sources? Why? Why not?
9. Right on the heels of Mr Obama’s speech announcing victory over al-Qaeda.
10. That pay disparity.
11. And some more maths fun.
12. One way to cool your thirst on a long ride. Not the usual way however.
13. A bookend, back to the light with a contrast of sorts.

Good morning.

1. Yep, you need to hold your line, apparently Mr Ferrari has forgotten that elementary point.
2. Tolerance and the much abused “Black Studies”.
3. Mr Krugman (and others) often goes off against EU austerity. Can you spot it? I guess austerity means something besides a cut in spending.
4. A book recommended.
5. A million years of global warming didn’t kill the dinosaurs, why fear a few tens of decades? In fact, this gives support to the climate warm = good hypothesis.
6. Of Parliament and separation.
7. Something, I gather, the pro-choice movement has nothing bad to say about.
8. A tree falls in the forest, see no noise.
9. One view on gay marriage.
10. Checking some results. What do you think the outcome will be?
11. Equine domestication and the Cossack.
12. He “got a few things right” (Mr Obama that is) … starts as damning with faint praise and goes downhill fast when the fact checking begins. Perhaps the article “a”, was unnecessary.

Wheee! A new week! (ahem uhm erhm) Good morning.

1. I concur … and (clickthrough) a little meta-backstory.
2. Familial ties, social or genetic.
3. Of property values and the entrepreneur.
4. 400!? That’s a lot.
5. Some definitions of racism. I still like mine, “it is racist to use race as a criterion where it isn’t clearly warranted.” And yes, selecting for college admissions based on race is racist.
6. Automation and the legal office.
7. Military training and a sim-city variant.
8. Hayekian road to serfdom in a modern context.
9. Yet another Julia.
10. I found this more humorous than perhaps it warranted.
11. A book noted.

Oooh, goody. A chance to link more stuff, make comments, and be misinterpreted.

1. A few comments here on bikes on roads might work. Uhm, I have been stopped by a cop riding a bike, in my case, because he felt “stopping” by doing a track stand (the bike stopped … but I didn’t “put my foot down”, which apparently for the cop means I’ve actually stopped). I’ll add that bike trails along side roads might be nice, but there are two problems, I think when they cross roads they are less, not more safe in that the cars/bikes aren’t really as cognizant of the other’s presence at intersections because they are on separated on the main path and second, lots of roadies are traveling a whole lot further than that short section of bike path. I used to take an 80 mile ride up to my mother-in-laws. Several sections of the path paralleled bike paths for about 2-3 miles of the whole trip. While that path might have made sense for the subdivision along side it, not so much for me.
2. Wheaton stands with the Roman Catholics.
3. Liberals like to point out how much more multiculturally senstive and aware and open they are. It just ain’t so, just observe these two leading liberal public intellectuals.
4. Courage recognized.
5. I think if you back that question up a bit you’ll find the “what constitutes healthy” a thorny enough question in and of itself without qualifying it.
6. While we’re in the business of thorny definitions, how about defining manufacturing.
7. The wonders of Obamacare and that whole “find out what’s in the law after you pass it”.
8. So, go ahead, follow Ms Warren’s example and check the “African American” section any application or employment form. And while your at it, check the “Cheerful” spot in the sexuality section.
9. Admission of guilt a bit?
10. Full assault mode. Attack attack attack!!!
11. Of economic opportunity and height.
12. Well, don’t worry, “reset” didn’t mean anything to anyone not in Russia either.
13. Well, no. I don’t think it is ever correct to hire a less qualified candidate. Who would? Now, I think the left would tell you that aff/action is to have preferences between equally qualified candidates. But, when they tell you that, alas, they are lying.

Good morning.

1. Over four years late … Obama background begins to be investigated.
2. Politics 101: How not to spin.
3. OK. I get it you didn’t like the paper (linked a few days ago). But, geesh, when criticizing a paper isn’t it bad form to use wrong/bad examples, i.e., house construction is not “bloated” because rents are going up … except why might rents go up? Could there be reasons other than a underultilization of construction resources? Perhaps because people aren’t buying because (with good reason) don’t trust property values to be stable yet? I’m no economist but that argument was just plain dumb.
4. Simple analysis of musical forms.
5. My first thought after seeing this is, well, Biden is worse … what ya complain’n about?
6. A political commentator whose never heard of Sarbanes Oxley apparently. Actually, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You don’t have to scratch hard at all to find anti-business in the beltway.
7. Not enough information and cheap puzzles.
8. Transliteration vs translation and maps.
9. Tort and adultery.
10. Hack spit. SAY WHAT? Let’s see, a policy success for the US, China threatens a man’s wife, he leaves the protection of the US embassy … and that somehow somewhere is a policy success?
11. Tripos (whatever that is) entertainment continues.
12. A good question, what does it take to get a higher rating?
13. What they don’t tell you is high reps (20+) to failure is amazingly painful compared to 4-10 rep to failure weights.
14. Atheists, believers and damned lies akin to statistics.

Good morning.

1. Of revenge and justice. Is motive the only difference?
2. Loyalty Day? Where is the liberal outrage? Where? Hmmm? Let’s see, what if Mr Bush had suggested that?
3. A better way to remember May 1. More links here.
4. More grist for the wind farm/climate discussion.
5. A thought experiment on truth telling.
6. Anti-semitism in Norway.
7. Huh? Insanity on the left coast.
8. Rational huh? Evidence to the contrary abounds.
9. Obama’s politicization of his assassination of OBL noted. The left can explain the crucial difference between “not moving heaven and earth” and “if we have a shot we’ll take it”. Seems like they were on the same page.
10. People densities on the planet projected in space.
11. Nuptials of a different sort.
12. Coolness, noted as no biggie by the left. An essential feature of coolness it seems to me is that coolness is a raising of style and aesthetic over substance. If you think that’s not important … perhaps you also believe that.

Good morning

1. Home brew, geek style.
2. What if not food, then grades?
3. It always comes back to maths.
4. I thought the update humorous.
5. Coming to the Holy Mountain.
6. So. How do we get there?
7. Coercion.
8. Higher education and a point made contra Mr Krugman.
9. Why they rape.
10. Swimming and a race.
11. An economic indicator.
12. Not if, when?
13. Head. Firmly in sand.
14. Get thee to the range.
15. Apropos the recession.

Good morning.

1. Let’s see, if a few percent change in a “part-per-million” gas can change climate can sucking many megawatts out of air movement and changing wind patterns change it? Hmm.
2. World War II and an obit.
3. The use of a second language, use it to consider the pros and cons of your nuptials?
4. This blog series is a lot of fun. Here’s part 1, part2, and part 3.
5. Queen Tamar.
6. Now that the President has decided to hype is “Obama slaying” in the partisan election campaign … details come out that aren’t exactly helpful to his hype.
7. Air vs air and air vs mud.
8. Ms Warren and  on again/off again minority status.
9. Beef, birth, and micro-economics.
10. Deft.
11. An insight into why the “world building” in Hunger Games was scant. (hint: it wasn’t the point)
12. Sleep (deprivation) and perception.

Thursday … and finally back home.

1. ‘Cause profiling is just WRONG!
2. Black. (me too)
3. 21st century perceptions of the possible and Ezekiel.
4. The short answer “no”, the long answer “it’s complicated”, the truth … well, he could kill it if he wanted to apparently he doesn’t so that “short answer = no” has a slight malfunction.
5. The zero bound and the bank.
6. A polite protest.
7. Acronym vs Kipling. I’ll go with the latter.
8. Strong women don’t need muscles or guns.
9. More background on Mr Zimmerman for the Zimmerman/Martin kerfuffle discussions.
10. So, true or not? Did you see a better short video segment yesterday?
11. An interesting point, the legal arguments are entirely disconnected from the non-legal ones.
12. I think it’s the meta-ethical capture of the Left by Consequentialism.
13. And when you add the high cost of tax collection … yikes.

Well, that should do for today. Have a good one y’all!

Good morning.

1. Off the beaten track information regarding Mr Wood.
2. Music and … heaven?
3. Misquote is a political strategy, alas practiced on both sides.
4. Our government overreach in action.
5. Beauty and church adornment.
6. Advice and academia from a very fast man.
7. Competition and moving power down not up.
8. Blank bang and the 3-d printing process.
9. Intimations of danger.
10. I disagree. It seems to me that wisdom/fool has a similar relationship as saint/sinner, the more you increase in wisdom the more you feel yourself to be the fool.
11. Yikes. And … it seems to me America and China would have a different reaction in the ensuing tort courts … and I’m not of the opinion that America is better in that regard.
12. Not getting “the sisterhood thing”.
13. Next stop the shooting range?
14. Marines then and now … which approach was better?
15. So, four strikes?
16. And a verse to recommend to close out this list.

Yikes, I’m running late. A few links?

1. A little political humor.
2. Not getting the IVF press.
3. Of drugs, alcohol and policy.
4. Of Obama’s reaching for (more) executive power, here and here. Ya think “ineffective Senate (legislature)” was not a reason Rome went Imperial? It worked so so well for them.
5. So, the BBC takes a story … and where do they go with it? The question is, are liberals offended by this too?
6. A little size disparity.
7. A metaphor for the nanny state? (see item #4).
8. Well, they grow on trees ya know!
9. A question asked, why is this more than a 2 hour trial?
10. A question about Colson and the Watergate kerfuffle.
11. The problem of positive errors.

Good morning. Christ is Risen! (response:  He is Risen Indeed!)

1. On our American reticence to share our problems (and consequently the impolite nature of noticing others problems as well).
2. On further thought … perhaps it would be better if one didn’t give it further thought.
3. Global warming and some IPCC predictions.
4. While on the subject of warming, “All that’s Fit is News” isn’t that the NYTimes motto? And heck, if the news doesn’t fit stretch it.
5. Missing. Why sundering is a good thing.
6. Weaponized food.
7. How not to correct a stereotype.
8. Yet another remark on the Derby kerfuffle.
9. Shrubbery … I guess the Monty Python/Holy Grail piece wasn’t the last word. The Administration wanted to get some laughs too.
10. More Obamacare Constitutionality issues.
11. “Unworthy priest” is after all enshrined in the liturgy.
12. Our President … a good bad example for industry?

Good morning.

1. Some parting thoughts on the Derb kerfuffle. I’d add that the observation that “white on black” crime gets national attention but the “black on white” (and the missed “black on “black” and “white on white” crime)  gets no notice at all.
2. Illegal trade practices and eBooks.
3. “Intolerance will not be tolerated” … one wonders how people who say things like that survive the cognitive dissonance.
4. Feminist? (big house, big dog and a shotgun).
5. 3-d printing of a different sort.
6. Press reports a Romney claim as “Mostly False”, misses the “Completely True” reality.
7. Romney and a prediction regarding the “winning back” the GOP perspective.
8. Oh, please, he’s already Peter Principled.
9. Flight … or? So what power would you want?
10. A book noted.

Good morning.

1. A discussion of modern heresy. An interesting observation, all theological heresies recapitulate as ecclesiastical errors. That is, errors of “what is God” recapitulate as errors in “what is the Church”.
2. Who benefits? The value of disinterested parties, and euthenasia?
3. When a methodology gives blatantly stupid answers, the methodology is suspect. Unless your head his too far buried in the sand to see it. This conclusion, “Although I think I agree that the ideal number of people is zero,” is one such stupid answer.
4. A liturgical poem sung last night in the Orthodox church(es). For myself the contrast of the repentant harlot washing Jesus feet and Judas greed and betrayal one  of the more powerful connections made in Holy week. (more here)
5. Country or profession, which is more important?
6. Atheists debating epistemology.
7. Of price and principle.
8. This happens more often than not I think, ads made for one candidate work for the other. Pro-Obama ads are more effective (for example) at moving me towards a sympathetic view of his opponent than not (and vice versa for that matter).
9. I thought this interesting, in the context of the Derbyshire kerfuffle, the analogy “as the right is to racism, the left is to communism” (and why) as expressed is what I found interesting in particular.
10. ABC, women, and the Limbaugh kerfuffle.
11. AGW, NASA and a petition.
12. 7th graders acting their age.
13. OK. So all the knuckleheads supporting the notion that the high court didn’t ever rebuff economic legislation since the New Deal now can retract. Those who were lawyers can turn in their degrees.