Good morning.

1. A chicken egg question. (and for the original question, it seems clear genetically the answer must be egg). 
2. Of science and god.
3. An Orthodox Jewish convert noted.
4. Fer the Palin fans. The most attractive thing, alas(?), about a Palin candidacy is the fits it will incite on sectors of the left.
5. Global warming.
6. Simpson-Bowles discussed.
7. Blogging as an activity.
8. Some wonderful puns to enjoy.
9. The FDA puts its two cents in against Irish coffee. As an aside, Mr Hemmingway used to use the combination of alcohol, sugar, caffeine, and nicotine as a truth serum to bust writers bloc (Irish coffee and cigars). 
10. Hiring practices.
11. Bang bang.
12. Ban lawyers from battlefields.
13. A hero interviewed. So … how many people in your company would list her as a modern hero? How many kids today?
14. Academics in the beltway.

Good morning.

1. Meta-Consequences.
2. QE2. 
3. Talking about intellectual curiosity. OK name the 4 people you think are histories greatest rulers/leaders/lawmaker/executives. Consider their qualities.
4. START.
5. Conservative media and the UK.
6. History, conservatives and the whole closed information system meme.
7. Putin and Lativa.
8. Chasing rocks. This is not unrelated.
9. The trivial and boredom. I often (not usefully) instruct my kids that the cause of boredom is not  the universe but is internal to them.
10. Coming soon to a computer near, well, if not you at least me.

Good morning.

1. Oddly enough most kids like gymnastics.
2. Cats drink … how?
3. The nativity fast began yesterday, more here.
4. Conservative praise for Wal-Mart.
5. Mr Obama’s science guy.
6. A “panic” … of which I’ve only heard from the one source … doesn’t sound like much of a panic. I don’t think my head is that far in the sand.
7. A TSA song.
8. Lustration and the Macedonian life.
9. A massacre of which you’ve never heard.
10. Truth and manners.
11. Ms Merkel on Islam and Christianity in Germany.
12. Mr Mohler might note that the traditional rite of Baptism is an explictly and exorcism. 

Good morning.

1. Blaming the GOP.
2. “God doesn’t want you to change.” … Huh? That’s just about as really really wrong as one could imagine.
3. The uninsured.
4. Atheist “ads” and a response, and the point is that the riposte(s) are as “fair” as the initial thrust.
5. Trust your rack? I don’t think I’d trust the window adhesive that much.
6. The political thinking of JRR.
7. A book list.
8. The dome.
9. How not to do a public hearing.
10. TSA.
11. Advice regarding charity.
12. An oasis found in the midst of the self-help desert.
13. Zach hack (HT: Dr Platypus).

Good morning. In a blog post title that I didn’t link, “Obama opposes permanent tax cuts for the wealthy” … I was confused by what the word ‘permanent’ might mean in that context. Permanent if it has any meaning at all really shouldn’t mean, until any given Congress decides to repeal it. 

1. Progressives and Hayek countered.
2. Presentation at the Temple.
3. Selling meat not under false pretenses.
4. Wealth and the US.
5. Discussing Obamacare.
6. Tax talk.
7. Math pedagogy.
8. Doubt.
9. Movement in the Anglican communion.
10. Heh.

Good morning.

1. Why is the method never questioned? That the poll (or polls in general) might be mostly garbage is not offered as a possibility. 
2. Get thee to the gym.
3. Free will and stuff.
4. 2010 census and the 2012 House.
5. On gaming debt.
6. Planned Parenthood and the Garden State.
7. Book selection and choices.
8. Memory and damage.
9. Is journalism witness?
10. Piracy.

Good morning. 

1. Personal responsibility.
2. A pie chart and a “non-shocker”.
3. More seriously, a discussion of humanism.
4. Our liberal ruling elite.
5. A book list for liberty.
6. A small view of ritual, which sort of knocks the linch-pin out of the discussion.
7. What people will do with their phones.
8. Pain.
9. The UK and the church state divide.
10. The empty tomb.
11. Recalling a good first post.
12. Mr Biden’s phantasmagorical delusion (one shared by not a few on the left I suspect).

Good morning.

1. Some post-election demographics.
2. Apparently the “it’s the economy stupid” memo hasn’t reached the White House post-election.
3. Of fear and climate.
4. How not to do diplomacy, Obama in India.
5. Mr Olberman and a prediction, specifically that the right wing will “howl for his resignation”. Oddly enough the first I’d heard about it was the NRO corner defending Mr Olberman against his firing. Hmmm.
6. A discussion between an atheist and Christian continues … now talking early church. Both side make claims that are in error often enough that I gave up on the notion of writing a post correcting their errors. I think there is more error than right in them thar woods.
7. Custody and law.
8. Predictability and democracy.
9. Dating advice for the distaff set.
10. The decaffeination process. Heh.
11. Golden tongue.

Good morning.

1. He carries both, although I think the broom gets used on the floor.
2. Our American political dialectic.
3. Orwellian language and war.
4. When “kinds of slavery” are discussed, and “racial slavery was especially severe” whence the gulag and Kolyma?
5. Money and commodities.
6. A black man and the left.
7. Speaking of stupid racial notions. Consider this sentence “Frankly, I would not bet on the consistent returns of any black man who regularly employed anger in a room full of white people” remove “black” and “white” from that sentence and it remains just as true … for “Frankly, I would not bet on the consistent returns of any man who regularly employed anger in a room full of people” is just as obvious. Duh.
8. More racism on the left.
9. What the Admin is not doing to help the economy.
10. People scoffed at Ms O’Donnell … but her concession speech cannot be beat. I applaud her sensibilities.
11. Obamacare and healthcare costs.
12. Checks and balances in the Roman Republic.
13. Fatherhood and daughters. I liked the line in a recent movie a dad giving ‘advice’ to the young man taking his daughter out on a date, “Don’t do anything to her that you don’t want me to do to you.”

Good morning.

1. The effect of the liberal publishing/media majority on conservative/liberal dialog.
2. It seems to me if you reject 1.1 the whole house of cards falls down. For humans happiness it might be argued requires pain … why is that not true in general?
3. For the eager conspiracy theorist.
4. HIV/AIDS and Russia.
5. An election related confession. And I confess that on Wednesday morning it was after 8:30 when I overheard someone talking about the election and it occurred to me … “Gee, I wonder how it turned out?” Seriously.
6. A bike on fire.
7. BSG science.
8. Fox and MSNBC compared regarding election coverage. CNN gets a mention.
9. Scientism and morals.
10. And to cheer everyone up, if needed.

Good morning.

1. A response to a liberal badly missing the point.
2. Someone who lives in a land without winter.
3. East and West and Halloween (or All Souls Day).
4. Fatwas and the Stewart/Colbert rally.
5. In case you haven’t seen this and need a laugh.
6. Poking GM.
7. I’m unclear on why the adjective “GOP” is needed. It’s a certainty that both parties ‘establishments’ have a close relationship with sleaze.
8. The plural of octopus.
9. Damage?
10. An interesting statistic.
11. Theodicy humor.
12. An post-election interpretation. I’d be willing to be that the percentage of Democrats who take that lesson will be less than 1 in 20.
13. Another post election prediction of sorts.

Recalling my last Subjunctive TV post, based on the notion borrowed from Douglass Hofstadter’s Achilles/Tortoise dialog wherein a TV was imagined where sports replays included “what if” features. These features began with standard, “What if they had run the ball instead of passed” and devolved eventually to more outlandish suggestions like, “How would that play have gone if 13 was not a prime number.” In that vein, for a short time anyhow, longer if it catches some interest, I’m going to try more “Subjunctive TV” speculative posts. 

James Madison and a few of his friends (and some likely not-friends) gathered in the late 18th century and penned a Constitution based on the modern theories of man and government at the time. A few years have passed since then and just a few things have changed in the world since that time. So the premise shift offered for today’s viewing and consideration is what sort of government might our founders suggested if:

1. There is a non-trivial body of work on the mathematics of voting. We have the means to tally votes in ways that are judged superior in better reflecting what people want than simple plurality.
2. Modern communications internet, phones, and so on exist. High speed efficient communication between large number of people assisted by automation exists and is adaptable to new purposes. 

We’ve had our current Constitution for just over 200 years. Some things went really well. Their back of the envelope estimations of power and principle and how to balance that was darn good. Yet people are increasingly of the feeling that government is too distant and too remote. It is very powerful but their input is irrelevant. The separation of the people in power from the problems they try to address and the complexity of those same problems is an increasingly obvious flaw. In the past, I’ve pointed out that the skill set required to be successful in the election process are almost completely disjoint from the job requirements and fail to test fitness to meet the demands of the jobs for which the elected official is to fill. 

I would suggest that if Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness was the end of government … then we might be able do design a government depending on and using different ways of getting peoples input and suggestions, finding solutions, and insuring freedoms in ways that, for example, don’t require taxation with so little representation. Could Facebook (of all things) and Open source software collaboration offer any models toward a completely new way of viewing government or …

How might the Constitutional Convention have played out if it was held today by technologically savvy politically astute men. How would a convention staffed by people like a Wozniak/Madison, Hamilton/Knuth offer for the nation?

Good morning.

1. Seven guys living together. Like a rock.
2. Witches and hunters.
3. Gotta love those teachers unions. And that’s “love” as in despise.
4. Prose or prosody and … conservatism.
5. Another one of the very few economists that predicted the recession noted.
6. Biking in the storm.
7. Oh, and one more for the bikers.
8. The deficit and Mr Obama again.
9. Separation of treatment of religions.
10. Some election day humor.
11. Red and blue demographics.

In recent essays on race I’ve caught some flack. My definition of racism apparently suffers mainly from its symmetry. One man committing a crime against another on account of race is racism irrespective of whether the man committing the crime is of a oppressing or an oppressed race. To put it bluntly, Hitler and the Nazis were guilty of racism. This fact does not depend on the point that they were wrong about the Jews being in cahoots and in control of the capital and intellectual currents in Europe. If they were correct and Jews in the halls of power and the banks did in fact have plans and power would not justify Auschwitz and Dachau and so on. The hatred and racism of the white gang burning crosses and throwing stones through windows of a black family because they are black is no different than a black gang raping a white girl because she is white. Both are pure examples of racism. 

So, if you think that racism depends on positions of power and authority and class lines drawn on racial grounds ask yourself this, Do you really think that Hitler is regarded a racist only because he was wrong? 

Consequential-ism is a meta-ethical theory that judges the rightness of decisions based on an evaluation of their consequences. This in turn it seems to me reduces ethics to economics. Consequence after all is at the end of the day is about costs. Ethics however is is also called the study of beauty and the good. Ethics is about choice. And we choose that which we perceive as good and which is beautiful. So, when you turn to ethics … which way of thinking do you prefer …  cash or Beethoven? 

Good morning.

1. On the eve of the election, it’s irrational to do research.
2. Divided government and 2012.
3. I was going to link this, and point out that I’ve never had nor seen such a conversation so I doubt the claims of universality are accurate. 
4. Going up. Really.
5. Orthodoxy and those virtues that appeal to men. I think dwelling on those points is problematic but I do like the comparison of nativity hymns, comparing ‘the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay’ … with ‘the Eternal Logos entering inexorably, silently yet heroically, into the fabric of created reality.’ … although the former is more poetic (in English).
6. Music and education.
7. Continuing that thought … “need” is not relevant. Maths (like music) are important for the same reason, see prior link.
8. Mr Gore, climate hypocrite.
9. Politics elsewhere.
10. Dirt and politics (as above) not new.
11. Lock yer doors.