Good morning.

1. So, from the government’s point of view, is there no important difference between a person without a child and couple with a child(ren)?
2. A book noted, which I guess touches on evolution quite a bit.
3. Song.
4. Civil war or not? Does it matter?
5. The nut for the GOP to crack.
6. No. It’s not a “war crime”, or OK, maybe it’s a “war crime” (with scare quotes) but doesn’t rise to the level of war crime.
7. So, do  you want to buy some? It’s real good shit, man. (literally)
8. So, defenders. Do you want to cite some actual Washington venture capital successes?
9. The innumerate candidate. It was a tie, move on, ever hear of error bars, eh?
10. Ms Jolie’s new film and the land it portrays.
11. You know, at the beginning of the concert when they announce “turn your cell phones off” that doesn’t mean “put it in airplane mode” and now you know why.
12. Global warming silliness. Which brought a consideration to mind, it occurs to me that the AGW alarmists really think that the issue isn’t just a demographic shift moving peoples about as areas of arable land shift about on the planet, but that they think that human life on the planet is in jeopardy. That’s just nonsense. I wonder if they realize that.
13. That high risk pool, bad numbers on both ends.

Good morning.

1. A slight change in the aerodynamic profile there.
2. Let’s see, a Democrat recipe for business success, the taxpayers will be loaning money to startups, but require they can’t advertise or market, can’t negotiate with vendors, and can’t hire people with prior expertise. That’s a bucketful of beltway stupid if there ever was one.
3. Those who think this man committed war crimes are picking up more of them buckets (of stupid). We gave him a Medal of Honor for a good reason.
4. So while considering crossing the Rubicon … in stealth. The only remaining trick is with term limits and elections, eh? One wonders how Mr Obama now feels about his participation in efforts to block appointments by passive aggression.
5. Sex and the Song of Songs in modern context.
6. If you can consider spending $45k on a wristwatch … money means something different to you than the rest of us. On the other hand, it is an interesting piece.
7. A common (but I think silly) modern neurological objection to free will noted.
8. A global economic indicator to consider.
9. Hah! Take him out back and beat the snot out of him. That’s the solution.
10. That’s English they’re speaking. Amazing. I wonder if I’m as incomprehensible to them as they are to me.

Good morning.

1. Taliban/Al-qaeda embassy?
2. It might be faith in the system, but do you really take civil breach of contract disputes to the police?
3. Hosana-Tabor … asking the question why Mr Obama’s White House didn’t think the 2nd Amendment figured in the picture.
4. Those anti-human activists.
5. Property rights and digital content.
6. One hard way to make a living, an example from the animal world.
7. Human’s in the zoo for fun and profit.
8. A supporter of the platitude man himself (Mr Obama) questions the soft content of GOP speechery. At least they (the GOP) haven’t picked up (to my knowledge) the Obama tactic of saying one thing to one group and the opposite the next day to another.
9. China girding its loins for what purpose?
10. Race that bike!
11. Our anti-business White House in action.
12. “No legal recourse” … oops, not true alas.
13. Law without morals, not so good, in fact completely ineffective.

The Firearm as a Tool
In Washington state, a National Park Ranger was shot dead by an Iraq War vet with post traumatic stress syndrome. In Oklahoma, an 18 year-old widowed mother shot and killed an intruder in her home.

From Massad Ayoob,

In each case, the death weapon was a 12-gauge shotgun. Some in the anti-gun camp have already blamed the law that allows ordinary, law-abiding citizens to be armed in parks like the one where the ranger was killed, for the depredations of a madman who had already violated every law from the Sixth Commandment on down before he reached the park. I try not to use words like “idiocy” when speaking of the other side, but in this case it fits. The firearm is a tool, which carries out the will of the owner. Evil in the first case, good in the second. Yes, it IS that simple.

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On that anti-gun hysteria
From the news report on the Park Ranger who was shot and killed,

It has been legal for people to take loaded firearms into Mount Rainier since 2010, when a controversial federal law went into effect that made possession of firearms in national parks subject to state gun laws.

That controversial federal law actually applies to the concealed carry laws which, to the best of my knowledge, do not apply to the carrying of 12-gauge shotguns.

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The True 1%
From Consumer Reports,

Only 1 percent of all mobile subscribers are guilty of gobbling up 50 percent of the world’s bandwidth, according to a new report by the British company Arieso, which advises mobile operators in Africa, Europe and the U.S.

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Quiet
Please.

###

Coddling replacing spanking?
From The Atlantic,

But crotchety as I am, I find it sort of creepy–and anecdotally, as the first generation of what David Brooks calls “Organization Kids” enters the workforce, employers are apparently complaining that they have an outsized sense of entitlement combined with a difficulty coping with unstructured tasks.

###

Apathy about religion and spiritual matters in America?
And this is surprising? From the article,

Most So Whats are like Gerst, says David Kinnaman, author of You Lost Me on young adults drifting away from church.

They’re uninterested in trying to talk a diverse set of friends into a shared viewpoint in a culture that celebrates an idea that all truths are equally valid, he says. Personal experience, personal authority matter most. Hence Scripture and tradition are quaint, irrelevant, artifacts. Instead of followers of Jesus, they’re followers of 5,000 unseen “friends” on Facebook or Twitter.

This is not surprising given our culture of peace, prosperity, and self-infatuation… the sorry thing is, we perpetuate this mentality in the church and in how we think we are evangelizing.

Woohoo, normal schedule, today at least.

1. Why the notion that the choice is either not both?
2. Hand and mind.
3. Models and testing.
4. Unintended consequences on the way.
5. Joan of Arc.
6. Hitler as man not monster.
7. Somebody’s failing to notice that winning an election isn’t anything like the position which winning yields.

Hmm, well, here’s a few links.

1. AFA/Obamacare … and standards of regulations not up to snuff, surprised?
2. A good answer to “Is God answering the prayers of Mr Tebow?”
3. A Roman Catholic physics joke.
4. Corruption and the White House, dear me, hmmm, is that change we can believe in?
5. A name change and subsequent legal difficulties seem related.
6. Blood libel and academia.
7. Theophany/Epiphany in ice and water.
8. Private schools for the poor.
9. Very cute.
10. Sudoku and some maths results.

Good morning.

1. Stand your ground?
2. Bones bones bones. (HT)
3. Which is then followed by an extended late childhood.
4. Case in point.
5. Feel good vid for the day.
6. A peace a price too high?
7. Uhm, maybe, but COIN included a whole list of things which the armed forces were not the best provider but currently the only available resource.
8. Entrepreneurship.
9. Obama rolls out strategy for the future military. Some reactions from the Shadow folk, here, here and here.
10. Fast and Furiously covered up.
11. Social (?) mobility. How/why is earning in a dollar value equated with social status?
12. Killing fields.

Good morning.

1. Knee jerk misquote noted.
2. 1 Liter SUV?
3. Riffing on Talking Heads lyrics.
4. Fresh off of various blatherations about Iowa demographics, now we have New Hampshire demographics.
5. Not firing the little grey cells overmuch.
6. Back when newspapers didn’t assume people were morons they could have fun with infinity.
7. Considering the recess appointment. Although perhaps the lesson here is that the only people in the room being honest are those who don’t flip their point of view depending on who’s in power, which might explain the lack of defense for those move observed on the left, those who wish to criticize this sort of thing in the future remain silent?
8. What would Edison say? Uhm, how about AC power is dangerous! Everyone should use DC only.
9. So is IPAB Constitutional overreach?
10. Some unfortunate facts about patents and patent law.
11. What to do? Hmm, probably the same thing you’ll do going to your “Feminist Physics” or “Feminist Inorganic Chemistry” or “Feminist Number Theory” classes.
12. For your wall.

Good morning.

1. Well, church and state, or “how then shall I vote?”
2. New England greenery and the West coast transplant.
3. Skinny skinny gymnast.
4. Dicy ditching despicable over-regulation.
5. For that bullet proof party dress.
6. That thing called science.
7. So Obamacare expanded coverage and will also cut costs, and things like this will never ever happen. Riiight.
8. A book noted. Another one noted here.
9. Captioned for your edification.
10. Weight loss.
11. Iran and the gulf.
12. Freedom of press and speech, why the distinction?
13. Why vote for Mr Santorum, or at least one reason.

Well, holiday hiatus is over. Links?

1. Modern edukashun.
2. Economics and a clash of narratives.
3. Considering boots on ground.
4. Seeking to emulate the Norks.
5. Two sides of a question here and here.
6. Democrats moving to tea party sympathies?
7. The problem with the disillusionment is that it is accompanied by some notion that this outcome isn’t a design flaw.
8. No. Russia using drones isn’t the problem with “drones aren’t an act of war?” It’s Iran, or other non-state actors following that lead.
9. Damned lies.
10. OWS and a social psychology view. (tip of the hat).
11. Retail litmus test.
12. The meaning of a word: political.
13. “Selling like hotcakes” … have you seen any evidence of booming growth of, say, IHOP? Me neither. Perhaps he really meant what he said.
14. It means “return of Zune.”
15. A poster. Ride that bike dude!

Yikes. Travel and work.

1. Not optimistic about the NK situation.
2. So a few deaths of note, a tyrant, a public intellectual of the lesser sort, and and a public intellectual of the greater sort.
3. Perhaps a metaphor for government.
4. So do you recommend camouflage for the grade points or standing your ground?
5. Study the classics.
6. One more reason to despise the architects of Obamacare, they engineered the assumption of yet more federal power.
7. So, which do you prefer, “love of”, “lack of”, or “too much” … and the rest of the post is worth reading too.
8. Iconoclasts in our midst, and btw, the trivial defense is just that, trivial.
9. I think it’s just a market twitch.
10. Now there’s a surprise, Lada and “best in class” in the same sentence.
11. For those who prefer to mock Fox and its coverage. Ooops.
12. The world’s grandmaster at estimation in action.
13. OK, granting the, err, his premise, then the question might be why does he engage in it so frequently?

Good morning.

1. This is in cartoon form, but a serious point is made. What do you suggest to fix this educational gap?
2. Yes, premise 1 seems false.
3. Tebow furor, an extreme example.
4. Undercurrents in Iran, a film noted.
5. What to eat while doing LSD on bike (LSD -> Long Steady Distance, not the hallucinogen).
6. Memories … .
7. ePaper and the better nightlight.
8. Not the normal headline.
9. Tea Party/OWS totalitarian version … noted here and here.
10. Cuteness.
11. This will have dire consequences.
12. Right after you ban talking in cars too.
13. Sleaze to the end.
14. Government spending and a study.
15. Porn must be very popular in Egypt … or something like that.
16. Never beaten athletic team.

Good morning.

1. Panacea? Nope. “Sucks less” might be a better term.
2. A PSA for today.
3. Of Jane Austen and the Russian novel(s).
4. Very very very slow motion photography.
5. So is that it? The OWS sees the fundamental problem that if the “1%” have some money then there is less for them?
6. Mr Tebow terrifying? Really? I’m missing out on the Tebow hoopla I think.
7. Altered pronunciation.
8. How not to get excited about math (and how to miss the point).
9. And on the other hand, this is how to make the argument that one can indeed get impassioned about numbers (or the argument that should have been made above).
10. Zoom (and boom?).
11. Forecasting and honesty.

Good morning.

1. Predators@Home … more here.
2. A book unrecommended.
3. Money and the (illegal) drug pipeline.
4. I have no idea what right wing/left wing means in this context.
5. Shocking, err, well what is sort of shocking is the gourmet fare the “1%ers” get for school lunches.
6. Pointing out the “bizarro econ” world the President inhabits.
7. Reverse smuggling anyone?
8. A Groseclose collaborator gets noticed for his work.
9. Grousing about Ms Clinton.
10. The left wants national health care, I guess that’s because the figure the way to help the bottom 10% is to make sure the bottom 90% have the health care poorer than the bottom 10% have now. That will somehow be “better” because it will  be “fairer.” Riiight.
11. Don’t worry, he’s just a teacher.
12. Music.
13. Toodles then.

Good, well, afternoon.

1. If you tie salary to actual performance, surprise … actual performance begins to track salary. Or perhaps the surprise is how it doesn’t track as well as it might even now.
2. Another book noted.
3. One more.
4. Marcus Aurelius growing in popularity?
5. An appreciative word for the NyTimes?
6. An appreciable part of the 1% and how their protest might look.
7. Economists bicker.
8. Another economist, so … do you agree or not?
9. I’m not really on board with Mr Martin’s corpus of fiction, but GURPS … on that we’ll agree. GURPS was the way to go (back in my RPG playing days).
10. The EU and the growth solution.
11. What they say and what they do.
12. Hello! And this is not unrelated.
13. So … what’s next? Othello? I think the “Othello syndrome” is likely more often seen in our public arena, i.e., a guy moving to take out an opponent at the cost of his own career.