Good morning.

1. Unthinkable, means the opposite of what you expect. For example, borrowing from Hofstadter, it doesn’t typically mean for example, “How would that (scene/play/argument/event) have looked if 13 wasn’t a prime number?” Or “How would have been if instead of people in Nations on Earth, but instead we were tri-sexual liquid hydrogen breathing cephalopodoid creatures swiming in the seas of a gas giant?” That’s a little more unthinkable.
2. Jesus and the bomb.
3. Read. The. Book. More here. That media bias thing. Settled, with some surprises, like that the WSJ is more liberal (in the news sections) than the NYTimes.
4. Libya and a bounce? On paper the Libyan exercise was done for humanitarian reasons, to prevent Quaddafyi from retaliating and killiing hundreds or thousands. We shall see how the reprisals go in the upcoming months … and whether the rebels, once victorious are kinder and gentler. If not, what impact on the humanitarian argument might that have?
5. A question that makes little sense. The priest is the ikon/icon of Christ. Jesus was, you know, male. Would you complain about watching King Lear, where the King was a gal and not complain about having a woman doctor? Almost unthinkable, eh?
6. Poking at print journalism.
7. So, if you see the term “Dominionism” used, it’s basically used by liberals in the same way that “Sharia” is used in the context of US political dialog.
8. In which the term “Lost”, alas, doesn’t mean unable to find its way home because of unfamiliar landmarks.
9. Apparently Mr Biden is a consequentialist. That is, if it didn’t have unfortunate unintended consequences then coerced sterilization and abortions would just fine. What a fine set of gentlemen we have in the White House.
10. Grrr.
11. Good idea or not?
12. On dealing with slander.
13. Not proto-Krugman, pseudo-Krugman.
14. Two men, at age 22.
15. A serious scientific problem for AGW/climate models.

Good morning.

1. Don’t just stop at considering lines and planes. Consider pi. Irrational although no measurement can test that. Yet … we find pi in lots of physical situations …. Is Pi real?
2. Libertarians and taxes here and here.
3. Perry and the Cowboy image (or reality). Speaking of cowboys, reading books like those by Louis L’Amour are a lot of fine fun (ask in the co-box if you want some title recommendations).’
4. Speaking of cowboys.
5. And romance, don’t forget the romance!
6. Remember Bastiat. And some didn’t ever get point of the lesson.
7. Ok. I got the book and read about 2/5ths of it last night. That kinda settles the media bias question. Now, what to do about it?
8. Inferior in what sense? Inferior! Grrr. Them’s fighting words.
9. Inferior scholarship noted.
10. Looking back at welfare reform.
11. Economics and alcholism.
12. 2nd Amendment worries.
13. This is not unrelated to #11.

Good morning.

1. Talking about the early middle ages.
2. A question on climate.
3. Freedom, Religion and “Of vs From”.
4. A photo-essay noted.
5. Photo-voltaics and nature.
6. Economy, jobs focus and Mr Obama.
7. Marriage Minus monogamy … isn’t something that makes sense.
8. An Obama joke (as told by a Democrat (?)).
9. Perry and the secession remark.
10. Free cooperation and a well known park.
11. Ballistic clay, replica armor and some arrows.
12. Freedom and the teacher.
13. Regulations and a bridge.
14. High Tech and US business praxis.

Would a serious Democrat primary challenge for President help or harm the incumbent?

Remember it would be a platform and forum in which the general election (non-primary) would be framed and the lack of that will mean now till late spring will be dominated by the GOP primary race for which there is no corresponding activity on the Democrat side.

On the other hand, he could lose.

Good morning. 

1. Racism … this can’t be said by a non-Black person (is because of implicit racism, shouldn’t anyone be able to say anything irrespective of race, i.e., if statement X is racist depending or not depending on the race of the speaker isn’t that an implicit racist notion?). 
2. The writer claims the linked statement by Mr Limbaugh is racist … I’m not going to disagree, but on the other hand I have no idea what or why that statement is noted as such.
3. This on the other hand, seems more clearly racist.
4. On Ms Bachmann and theocracy.
5. On climate and Carbon dioxide. 
6. And a climate question.
7. A little whining from the left. Wow, that’s just completely ahistorical.
8. Cinema … and liturgy in a sci-fiction movie.
9. Let’s see, atheists cling to a theory that the more intelligent and better educated you are the more likely you are to be an atheist. Look at the top ten list, that second list is clearly matches the top academic institutions nationwide, or not.
10. On poltical attractiveness of Keynsian economics.
11. Fun with a little Zirconium.
12. Affording kids.
13. Mr Perry … should it? Yes. 

Good morning.

1. Fashion, I’ll go with fabulous.
2. So … alchohol involved or not?
3. Noting a poor analogy made by the President.
4. The legal/not-legal drug problem.
5. Missing the other half of the statement. Mr Buffett when asked why he gives to other charities and not the IRS … offered that the other charities yielded more for the dollar and were far more efficient than the government. Ooops. 
6. Haven’t made money in decades … or not. Not this might have been a speakers gaffe, but more likely Mr Obama really didn’t go into any details over finances of moribund financially instable companies when making the decision to bail them out. 
7. Zooom.
8. Dragons in space.
9. Where are the incentives?
10. Chastity.

Good morning.

1. Heh.
2. Violence and the Interwebs.
3. More on riots.
4. Economic indicators.
5. States and gun laws.
6. No apologies for what? He also, one might note, makes no apologies for streaking. Alas, nobody is accusing him of that either.
7. A narrative from Libya.
8. Just to buy votes … 
9. Obamacare, now being sold as bait and switch. How is that a good thing?
10. So, just curious. Do you get the mpg rating your car is touted to get?
11. Midway and government economic interventions.
12. Offender registries. Seems like a case of tried and failed … so when will they be eliminated? Likely not in our lifetime, eh?
13. An academic exercise in a journalistic setting. 
14. Kansas preacher visits the Madison political froth.

Good morning.

1. What is Dominionism?
2. So, the Administration now tries to optimize that which is already being aggressively optimized. And to think the difference between this admin and the prior is that the current one is alledgely smart. Perhaps a correction on that notion is needed.
3. Anti-intellectualism is an American trope, not liberal/conservative.
4. Not true I for example, never pay attention to Mr Buffet.
5. Here’s a slightly snarky response to Mr Buffet.
6. How about a cynical one?
7. Our admin continues the abandonment of Taiwan.
8. Duh. We’re not known as a petroleum based economy for no reason.
9. Guns and bars.
10. Speaking of guns ….
11. Global politics, networks and an interesting conversation.
12. Top ten weird ideas (held by Mr Perry)… alas not very interesting or weird at all.
13. Campaign paid for by taxpayers. 
14. 5 Questions posed by a liberal that “conservatives can’t answer” … I guess it helps to never listen to actual conservatives. Answers are to those questions are not hard to find. The first (two) are quite obvious (and alas the same question). I think I can do it in two or three sentences. Let’s consider the economy as a mountain climber … stimulus is like giving the climber more caffeine. Regulations are like additional weights holding him down. Uncertainty is like spraying lubricants on the rock. How speed his climb without giving him caffeine? Hmm. To a liberal apparently there is no way to do that. The real question on such a thing is why the liberal mind things that more caffeine is the only possible response. 

Good morning. Our families backwoods canoeing trip to the BWCA went well. More on that tonight. How about … links?

1. Marriage and discussions of same.
2. 9/11 and response.
3. Motivation for research.
4. Climate science and a little “follow the money” logic.
5. From an adminstration that’s been just about the most anti-business anti-growth of the last 40 years … those remarks are, what, meant to be ironic?
6. Exhibit A.
7. Today … the Dormition of the Theotokos …. soooo what’t that about? An answer.
8. Rage against the machine?
9. A slug in the lung as response to riots?
10. A science social matrix.
11. Aquinas meets phenomenology.
12. Abortion and technology … 
13. William and cinema. I do recall really liking the John Cleese Taming of the Shrew (which isn’t on the list).
14. We actuall do “things” about the weather … they’re “things” called housing, heating and A/C.

Good morning.

1. That (or A if you missed it) public prayer at NASCAR defended.
2. Our commercial regulation is out of control, eh?
3. Finding God at the Puffington Host. (HT)
4. A debt milestone reached.
5. Our President in response to crises … follows Ms Palin’s lead?
6. Java and Oracle. Grump.
7. Recession or Contraction? (HT)
8. A climbing wall for real.
9. If you build it, they will come … or something like that.
10. Western perceptions and the anti-hero. 
11. College and cost. (HT)
12. That Arctic “tipping point”.
13. I too have had difficulty with poetry as an art form. Baudelaire was the first poet I read voluntarily. I’ve come to like Homer (and the Psalms) as well. 

Good morning.

1. Summing up the debt/cap thing.
2. The next fight.
3. I’m not sure what to say about that photo … but it’s affecting.
4. eCars not booming … and one reason why, heck those batteries cost as much as 2 normal cars.
5. The Biden TP=Terrorist theme is not a solo. Why? What point is being made here by the left? I don’t get it.
6. But, if you can’t beat it, join?
7. And why, if food isn’t expensive enough … let’s make the family farm illegal, eh? 
8. Let’s see, three or so months ago, the President made a odd speech in which he touted his “new programs” to expand drasticly increase domestic oil production, a claim I noted as highly dishonest. Hmm, waddya think now?
9. Contra America-as-evil. 
10. More than a little odd (or truth, stranger than fiction).
11. Life and love, before the age of almost-free data exchange.

The Greek conception of deity and eternity from the golden age of Greece through the coming of Christianity was one rooted in Eternity. Platonic notions of the Ideals, abstracted but concrete (in an idealic realm) and atomic these anchor reality. The Universe was (in their view) eternal and any creator or originator had too be as well unchanging and eternal as those ideals.  The truths of these claims were established by the inexorable logic of a philosophical framework on which their civilization/culture was based. Modern deism is very close to these notions with the exception that creation is not, as the Greeks apprehended, eternal but has a beginning (and likely an end). It might be noted I’m unaware of how modern deists deal with the conflict between a God which creates a universe and is at the same time unchanging and eternal (or perhaps the unchanging part is dropped).

The Jewish concepts of deity was concrete by comparison. Rooted in history, prophecy, promise and compact. If not personal it was apprended and comprehended by persons. The history and its narrative validated its truth. A God which speaks to a people or persons in an individual way was seen as incompatible and very different in character from the Greek Ideal for God (or gods).

Modern arguments as they appear between deists, atheists and Christians bring up notions of deity that can be  brought into sympathy with both of these two very different notions. That this is impossible is a common mistake that is made in the modern discussion that surround these notions which the following might be viewed as an attempt to bring the Christian viewpoint on the nature of deity into relief (and to contrast with the above). Read the rest of this entry

Good morning.

1. “Real people” as opposed to the plastic people in the Beltway? What is that?
2. Those lines are in the wrong order. 
3. And here’s why. More on that here.
4. Remember the left wingers went nuts after Ms Giffords was shot claiming the shooter was a right wing nut and politcal rhetoric was to blame? And then cooler heads prevailed showing that all to be false. The left wingers have short memories it seems.
5. Racism in the (liberal) media.
6. A wrap up of the Presidents negotiating strategy of demonizing the other side.
7. Offence taken for the decorum at a gay pride parade picture.
8. An interview, the short story of two boys at the end was interesting.
9. Top automaker that you didn’t realize was out there.
10. Actually “La Brea Tar Pits” is better … seeing as “la brea” means “the tar”.
11. How far do you drive instead of fly? Although the length of the stay is an important factor for me at least.
12. False economy in computer science?

Good morning.

1. Some advice for a young man.
2. So … the bin Laden thing was an assasination. I wonder how that might go over in the land of moral war theorists and liberal hand wringers over war and method? Besides, of course denial of the obvious.
3. Welcome to the Tea Party dude, didn’t Biden just call that sort “terrorists?“
4. And what the heck did he mean “cracked head club?” Seriously, when you think back to the last election … how can anybody criticize Mr McCain’s choice of Ms Palin in the face of the abilities and public figure we have in the VP slot right now. 
5. It’s worse than you think y’know. Who do you know that gets the mileage the EPA says your car gets. OK, well I do … but I drive like a dork.
6. Well that’s how you keep bike lanes clear in cities, eh?
7. Libertarians amused that they are now labeled as “far right wing.” 
8. Unbiased media … hah!
9. It’s actually much worse than that. The reason it’s hard to take Keyensians like Mr Krugman seriously is that their prescription in good times and bad is the same .. increase government is the constant recommendation, the only difference is they’d prefer to lower taxes in a recession and raise them when it’s gone.
10. A really bad argument offered. “demonstrating among other things that the failure to buy insurance (on the private market) is hardly an instance of inactivity, but rather a choice to self-insure. Replace insurance in that sentence with clothing. Is a mandate for government requirements that you purchase clothing (and not privately sew) … is Constitutional?
11. For your gustatory enjoyment.
12. And the presentation of the same.