Good morning.

1. Two “thousand word” commentaries.
2. A fable.
3. Separation of Church/State, from the other angle.
4. Inflation in our future.
5. One reaction.
6. The elephant in the evangelical marriage discussion.
7. Volokh conspirator in a bigger venue.
8. In the context of Hawking’s talk of God, Wittgenstein.
9. Physical dexterity.

Good morning.

1. A prediction on Presidential ratings.
2. On his message.
3. He should know, he was one of them.
4. How not to put yourself in others shoes.
5. 2.7kg bike.
6. Tea Party and the starfish (note I got malware warnings from the sidebar blogroll provider site going there).
7. A picture for the day.
8. Look where the libs want to take us, if you think unemployment is bad now.
9. Verse.

Good morning.

1. Questioning a charge.
2. Cinema exposing life.
3. Queen Ketevan.
4. Some wise words on chastity.
5. Ephraim! (for those who don’t know, St. Ephraim is the Chrismation Saint I chose when I converted to Orthodoxy).
6. Is Atheism a religion?
7. A teachers manifesto.
8. Lower and higher criticism and Islam.
9. Populism, an attempt at a categorization.
10. Trained parrot? Get with the times, that German precognitive octopus is far far better.
11. Freedom and Mr Obama’s agenda.
12. Prepare your encryption engines.
13. A question in comparison.
14. Mormon’s and the Christian question. Why can’t people get that right? It’s like its very complicated. At cultic level, Mormon’s and Nicene Christians are both Christ cults (both are cults in which Jesus of Nazareth is a primary element). The word “Christian” in common usage is commonly shorthand for Nicene Christians, i.e., Christian cultists that affirm that creed. Mormons do not belong to that group. So, are they Christian, technically yes in the cultic sense, but in common usage of the word, no. 
15. A tech gadget for the ages.
16. Not unrelated, and the Iliad is not on the list, so I am a bit put out.

Good morning.

1. Two from the movie musical Wizard of Oz, “Courage”: here and (not) here.
2. Missing the point, what he said might be true, but what is the point and what is the effect of saying it? How is it useful?
3. Considering space, and while the space of mathematical concepts is larger not smaller than what we perceive, I think there is still a strong anthropological perceptual bias to mathematical concepts and intuitions. Consider for a while what maths might be developed by a intelligent race whose environment and perception made the notion of the integer as foreign or abstracted as infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces.
4. Mr Obama on foreign affairs, here and (the cartoon is good) here.
5. How it will be seen vs being responsible.
6. Green party, low bar or high bar?
7. Stepping in others shoes.
8. Examining the “crazy” meme regarding Ms O’Donnell.
9. Economics of Obamacare.
10. A first ad.
11. Hmm. Or better perhaps, duh! 

Good morning.

1. Summers out, as you all likely know already. I’ve a naive question, he’s been part of the Obama admin, when and how was his reputation rehabilitated after the Harvard kerfuffle in the eyes of the left?
2. I don’t get why Brooks didn’t just undersell the clone price in the first place?
3. Stimulus, apparently like climate. AGW and the effects of stimulus are deeply hidden in larger noise and short term counterexamples meet the “weather is not climate” rejection. 
4. What soldiers in the field want these days.
5. That girl in the cage … which makes me mindful of the books of Mr Vachss. 
6. Poverty and the elephant in the room.
7. Those CEO salaries.
8. Environment and virtue.
9. A common problem with new green designs, to catch on it needs to be close as good as its replacement, if not better.
10. For those who dismiss the Austrian school, they do it seems collect Nobel prizes.
11. An anniversary of sorts, and a consequence to look out for going forward alas hidden behind subscribers walls, the upshot is apparently that much of the costs of the new expansions in care will be covered by non-wealthy seniors.
12. Mr McChrystal.
13. Working at home, the upside. The downside? No bike ride to work, I guess.
14. Heh.

Good morning.

1. As I’m from Chicago, some Bears talk, here and here. I thought the first well written.
2. Someone forgot it’s not ants, but white mice.
3. Wealth and birth rate.
4. I’m not sure what the heck that man is doing, but the tag “pic of the day” is not inappropriate.
5. Ms O’Donnell. 
6. A prayer-as-humor?
7. On Tea Parties and here on their likely future.
8. A rejoinder to “It’s hard to believe Republicans would get much support if people were smarter” might be that if people were smarter we wouldn’t require the Democratic nanny state and therefore we’d all be small government Republicans.
9. Verse, for me, though the lens of Google translate.
10. Travels completed (for now).
11. Talking about a somewhat unserious study on cutting government spending, inasmuch as in my brief look for the authors government spending does not include entitlements at all, which makes it quite unserious as a not insignificant piece.
12. Great news, and is this a Geek thing? Epsilon? Our first was “Floid” prior to birth, the “i” instead of “y” a pointer to computer automation and such geekery.
13. On boredom. 
14. Well, recently I noted a father/son exchange quoted, here’s another with a different flavor.

The first ‘perception’ is an observation of the Democrat elites allergic response to the Tea Party populism. The Tea Party gatherings, according to cricket racers accounts (polls), are as much as 40% . Even If you believe that the cricket racer might be shifting the numbers due to partisan bias in method or reporting … consider that even if the numbers of 2/5ths for you are not credible, to report as such, they are likely greater than a quarter. So, what reason is it that the elite on the left both deny the presence of Democrats in this movement and at the same time show considerable hostility towards it and their primary message? It seems likely that a primary reason is about intellectual turf. The Democrat elite self identify as being the party representing the interests of the common man against the big corporate and wealthy business interests in government. Thus when the common man, which is ontologically that which a populous rising contains, arrays itself against the Democrat elite that is a betrayal. In their naive view, populism should be primarily within their ranks, it should be an internal driving constituent driving force within their party. Them commoners are getting uppity. And inasmuch as they align themselves with the “other” party (which they identify as representing those big corporate and the wealthy) then that’s just plain wrong. This is then a likely cause of the Democrat elite’s allergy to the Tea Party, for populism should be within and supportive of them and, of course, should never primarily seek common ground with the other side.

Which brings me to the other consideration, Mr Obama in a recent speech noted that regarding tax increases for the wealthy that this “wasn’t in his (personal) best interest.” This is only half-true and the part that is true is uncharitable in its implicit assumptions. And the only reason for pointing that out, is that in my view, it is a notion shared by many if not most Democrats. First, let’s get the accuracy of this assertion out of the way. It is indeed against Mr Obama’s interest with respect to taxes to raise the taxes on the wealthy as he is one of those. But as a professional politician, inasmuch as he believes raising taxes on the wealthy raises tax income, more money for the government kitty is in Mr Obama’s direct interest. His “business” is government and more tax income directly aids his professional interest.

As for the uncharitable aspect of this observation this is more important. Because it is shared by those who share that opinion. Mr Obama is willing to support a measure which is against his personal best interest because he feels that measure is in the countries best interest, but … (and here’s the sting in the tail) he is unwilling to grant that motivation to those who oppose him, e.g., the Tea Party. The Tea Party gatherings are a populous movement and as such have dozens (or more) motivations for bringing people aboard, but the overriding motivation is cutting government size and spending. There is a direct parallel between those Mr Obama’s  “I support tax increases for the wealthy which is against my personal (short term) interest because it is in the countries best interest” and the Tea Party person who says “I support cutting government spending which is against my personal (short term) interest because it is in the countries best interest.” Democrats ascribe the first magnanimous statement to themselves but are too uncharitable to consider the same magnanimity to the other side. Consider for yourself how often you’ve heard the argument used by Democrats that these folks are “voting against their own interests.” Yep, that’s right. For exactly the same reason y’all do it if you’d have the graciousness to ascribe the same good motives to the other side. 

Good morning.

1. A Protestant prepares to consider Orthodoxy asking “what do they consider the most important” … if he doesn’t come up with a call for repentance as the most important, then he’s missing the forest for the trees (at best).
2. Fossil fuels and climate.
3. Religion and language compared.
4. Chesterton defended.
5. A tale told.
6. A Greek considers tourism.
7. Mr Obama’s boilerplate campaign speech.
8. On hard circumstances.
9. Witness and example.
10. Travel with Dad.
11. Dealing with the ‘extremists’.
12. Well, it seems to me, if the Democrats (or any party) decided to front a similar notion, that would be their death knell.

Good morning.

1. Mr Obama’s new people, here is one and … it looks like I can’t find the link for the second which was about Ms Warren. I haven’t seen liberal/progressive blogs criticizing that appointment. Have you? Because if you don’t that’s a sign of partisanship trumps consistency.
2. Targeted killing.
3. For the Mr Krugman fans (or anti-fans), a first round knockout. 
4. On marriage. 
5. Also on marriage.
6. Institute ala squirrel.
7. Uhm, perhaps he’s talking about dance because school killed the notion of creativity linked with math so completely it doesn’t even enter the picture.
8. Why are the Democrats so against Mr Soros and the like?
9. Silly things said by Delaware pols.
10. On the pundit simplification.
11. Charity.
12. Newsworthy or not?
13. Well, the left has lost all standing with respect to their claim the “we’re behind small business.”
14. Dropping the “weather is not climate” position on AGW.
15. For the Palin fans which continues here.
16. So … will the lunatic fringe come back in fashion?
17. I have to disagree a bit, the Eastern Roman empire used a mix of force and appeasement with some success for centuries before the Crusaders sacked Constantinople. But there has to be a strategy.

Update: link for 17 fixed.

Good morning.

1. An economist responds.
2. Noting the problem.
3. Well, it might be because they take religion and politics in a positivist manner, hewing to consequences of matters because the logic dictates as such.
4. The Roma in Russia.
5. Two trees.
6. He has a point, one wonders how a government that subsidizes alternative energy can complain that another country is doing the same.
7. More Tea Party ruminations.
8. A “short horror story.”
9. Talking ancient science.

Good morning.

1. Humility in a pro athlete.
2. A question for the Keynesian stimulus proponents, where’s the bump?
3. A film setting aside Hollywood preconceptions about the Islamic world.
4. Advice for those seeking God.
5. Tax on the high wage earners.
6. Mr Reno on Mr D’Souza.
7. More for the Palin fans.
8. Burning the Koran and legal consequences, continued.
9. Humility.
10. Macro-Economics and the court jester on the Hill. This is in line with a lot of my notions about economics.
11. Some verse, here and here, although I think the only common thread there is that both are samples of poetry. 

In my late-vocations class were were informed that during late antiquity in the Eastern (very Christian influenced) Roman empire there was an operational just war theory. That theory was quite simple and was as follows. 

War is never just. 

Now this is an interesting theory of war to be held by a Empire which was almost continuously at war (mostly for defense) for 800 years or so. This merely points out that the conclusion that war is not just is not equivalent to the claim that war is at times necessary. 

War not being just however, did not mean war was not practice or even should not be practiced. Those engaged in war, because of its inherent injustice, were excluded from Eucharist for a period of five years (if the war was not deemed defensive, in which case it was three years). I think there are some problems with this theory as presented about how the Eastern Roman Empire viewed justice vis a vis war, in that I’m pretty sure that clerical presence was found alongside the army. What was its purpose if these soldiers were all “out of communion” during wartime? 

Good morning.

1. I think the reflection that there are complexities to this interesting.
2. Advice from a bike thief.
3. Wanna be a monk?
4. Duh.
5. Finding Jesus.
6. Being a jerk and a guy.
7. The third man of the BoB.
8. Small business and taxes.
9. Mr Government will fix all … or not.
10. TARP, thanks or not. More on TARP here.
11. Koran burning and the First Amendment.
12. More Obamacare in our future.
13. For (my) rabid Palin fans.
14. Of Scripture and abominations.

Tax cuts are often discussed in terms of budget impact with phrases like “paying for a tax cut” or as “costing money.” 

In a book I read years ago by a Microsoft engineer about projects development the phrase “idiot bit” was used. The context for that is that when a persons “flips your idiot bit” and you realize they’ve done or said something idiotic the conclusion that that person is not too sharp is a “sticky” conclusion. They may do half-a-dozen things that are insightful and highly innovative … but once you’ve internally labeled that person as “stupid” it takes a lot to reverse that conclusion. Now, anthropologically speaking, this might be in part due to the peculiarities of how perceptions of intelligence is socially valued within the Microsoft (and software) sub-culture … and perhaps as well that this sort of “sticky conclusion” might be generalizable to other sub-cultures and “sticky” conclusions centering around the things they value. 

Usage of the terminology like “paying for tax cuts” and “tax cuts costing money” is a red-flag which, for myself at least, flips a similar “sticky bit.” From a somewhat abstract accounting point of view there is a sort of peculiar logic to that sort of terminology. But usage of that term betrays a level of abstraction and a point of view about taxation and government spending which forgets that taxation is inherently a violence against person or family. Taxation is a necessary evil of government. But to think of less taxes as a “cost” on government is a reversal of what should be the normative point of view, that government and its spending itself is a cost which is paid for by taxes. 

For small government proponents, statements about tax cut as cost “flips” a sticky bit. This means that it is hard to escape categorizing the speaker as a person willfully riding down the road to serfdom and at best a socialist or fascist. 

Good morning.

1. The conversation on Mr Kain’s simplification of motives for war continues. It seems to me pretty clear that the simplifications have problems in that they don’t match motives for war very well and often the assignment to categories are very strained. The question might then devolve to asking what advantage is gained by this simplification. If none, then its just a pointless pedagogical exercise. 
2. The new 1099 and small businesses. 
3. France and the Great Depression. 
4. Inequality and red pickled fish.
5. “Washington Rules” …. Rules!? Rules does not seem to me the best word for rampant venal stupidity inflicted on others.
6. Case in point.
7. Talking about intellectual honesty.
8. Heh.
9. Tradition done right.
10. Our future, zero tolerance for dissent.
11. Pray for the safe travel.