Good morning.

1. Correction and an argument for union protection in the public (not private) sector.
2. The coming demographic crisis in China.
3. Uhm, I can’t imagine the Irish population in either city is a significant percentage.
4. A question for economics and income stratifcation.
5. Torture.
6. Iranian hardware in Afghanistan. Who paid for them?
7. An item in the news lately.
8. Performing for monsters?
9. Kinda like pacifists paying taxes in wartime. Hmm.
10. In the when in a hole, keep digging mode, or not? More seriously, I’m curious at the left, who largely was behind the objections to largely symbolic statues in courthouses because of relgious content now supports  not-just-symblic statutes in the books of the same sort in those same houses. Since when has the left been so supportive of involuntary clitorectomies and highly assymetric divorce laws anyhow? And why? 
11. Looking at warming predictions … 20 years predicted 2-4 degrees warming, the result basically none. 
12. The beautiful results of heresy, specifically the possessor vs non-possessor conflict. As you can see, the possessors won.
13. An Obamacare riddle.
14. Coptic Christians, canary or match?

Palin says Kathy Griffin is a 50 year-old bully
Oh, come on Sarah. Let’s not be denigrating all the bullies out there by associating them with Griffin.

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And iPods for all…
Jesse Jackson Jr. does his best Liberal argument for how the government best needs to provide for its citizens, including the right to have a decent home.

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Thief / burglar / home invader calls 911 to report that the homeowner may be armed
Well, I suppose it follows that if you have a right to a home, then the home doesn’t have to necessarily be owned by you.

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PJs Day at school?
Good idea, or just kinda weird?

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Taliesin is tumbling (and Falling Water is falling apart)
If an architect designs a house and the house, despite being revered as a work of art, falls apart, is it not logical to conclude that the architect, while (perhaps) an artist, was a lousy architect? What is one to make of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin? At least it isn’t yet part of the dreaded A.R.T. Syndrome.

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Anti-gun legislator shoots home invader
Nope. No contradiction here.

Good morning.

1. Some fun to start, here (which reminds me of my own haircare practices) and the old non-sequitor.
2. On that non-sequitor thing… uhm.
3. Considering intervention.
4. The first four days of Lent liturgically in the East, pictures here and here.
5. What is that canon of St. Andrew?
6. The insenstive man.
7. Another strike against unions and regulatory barriers.
8. A college course?
9. Are those the only three possibilities?
10. Culture and schooling.
11. That ice is complicated is just the tip of the berg … which is why making predictions is premature.
12. Spring.
13. Bad news for the Obamacare supporters, yet another reason for its implementation is unwarranted.

Good morning. 

1. Lent begins, and a popular American company gets in the act in Greece.
2. A thought on the Lenten process.
3. Normally critical of Mr Krugman, one person gives him his due.
4. Of rights, place, and a film.
5. Talking union.
6. Way out on the Palin derangement limb or … how un-self-aware a blogger sounds when talking about the putative self-awareness (or lack) of those whom he basically has zero personal knowledge.
7. A good coda for the Krugman/Iowahawk exchange.
8. A odd way to praise a translation.
9. Dimension and scale.
10. Plumbing the depths of young male stupidity.
11. Fisticuffs and gender.
12. The genesis of modern science.

Ordnance found on a York city street!
It seems that the police were summoned after a man discovered live ordnance in a puddle of water. From The York Press,

A STARTLED man has told how he found a bullet lying in a York city-centre street.

Tim Stark said he was unloading items into the MOR Music store where he works in Fossgate yesterday morning when he spotted what he believed to be a live .22 bullet gleaming in a puddle.

That’s right – the ordnance was a lone .22LR cartridge, such as is used to “plink” empty cans, shoot gophers, etc.

This, my friends, is what happens when you vilify (and confiscate) firearms.

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I’ll bet they made no bones about shooting the whole 9 yards
An Engadget post about the iPad 2 generated some interesting comments, especially regarding just how broad the knowledge base is of some of its readers. While we live in a Google-rich world, with every bit of information seemingly at the tips of our fingers, it seems that some individuals have issues with commonly used idioms.

First, the original post,

Ignore the fact that the iPad 2 is likely just a few weeks away — we’re talking about the here and now. You’ve read our $0.02 on a few of these, but why not throw a few opinions of your own in comments below?

Then, some of the comments that resulted,

just to let you know the phrase is “two sense” not “two cents”

…

the phrase, dear Mike, is “to sense” meaning get yourself some sense before making nonsense corrections.

…

No, its definitely $.02 as in 2 cents

…

What kind of bonehead are you? Obviously, the correct phrase is “too scents!”

…

That doesn’t make any sense! The phrase is “my two cents” it’s originally from an English saying “my two pennies worth”. Get your facts straight before you start correcting people.

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Choosing pets over children – sad article of the week
While the myth of adolescence may certainly be a reality, it seems we have created a generation of self-indulgent perpetual adolescents, intent on driving themselves into the realms of PD James’ Children of Men.

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Rob Bell, oops
Perhaps it was a brilliant publicity stunt, which succeeded in getting a whole lot of free exposure. But I’m wondering if they’ve not shot themselves in the foot for any future work?

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I apologize, really
I truly believed that the people of California would not re-elect Elmo-loving Boxer (m’am).

Good morning.

1. TSA, coming where?
2. If it doesn’t do that, what’s the point?
3. Economics and nonsense.
4. Attacked? For what?
5. That’s the attraction of “pragmatism”, after all having principles is just soooo limiting.
6. Jailed in Germany.
7. The FDA strikes again.
8. What you know is wrong, examine for example the Puritan preacher.
9. Happiness and the US.
10. An interesting comparison made by the left.
11. Visiting a memorial.
12. Not the digital revolution we have come to expect.

The Left has been energized lately about Charles and David Koch; the brothers who run Koch Industries and give to right-leaning causes. What’s interesting is that the Left simultaneously ignores the money that comes in from George Soros. Personally, I don’t mind rich people giving their money away to causes they agree with, whether liberal, conservative or otherwise.  But the Left has been apoplectic over the Kochs, or, as John Hinderaker says, they have an unhealthy Koch habit. Charles Koch wrote an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal on Tuesday laying out what his issues are; getting rid of "crony capitalism" and massive government spending & debt so that entrepreneurs aren’t stifled at the expense of the politically connected. So…why is the Left against this?

Medicare is losing $48 billion a year from fraud and otherwise improper payments. And Democrats want to give the government more control over our health care purse? Really?

A Christian politician in Pakistan, the country’s minister for minorities’ affairs, was assassinated yesterday for speaking out against the proposed blasphemy law, that would make it a crime to insult the Prophet Muhammad. This is the second high-profile murder related to this law. This may have been perpetrated by Islamic militants, but moderates within the "religion of peace" are getting a bad name from all of this. The problem is, there are a lot of those militants all over the world.

And finally, a civics lesson. (Click for a larger image.)

Goooood morning.

1. Mr Krugman caught lying with statistics.
2. S;peaking of the skewering of NYTimes punditry.
3. Anti-Semitism and racism.
4. Showing its demographic weakness, so who is supposed to be buying these things, besides the rich wanting to badge as green?
5. Stupid academic folly, more here.
6. Continuing the folly of the non-exceptional status of man.
7. Climate and cycles.
8. Vice or virtue?
9. Mr Obama as neo-con?
10. Billionares and the left, a question.

Good morning.

1. Plutarch on the modern politician, while the quote is focused on Mr Obama I think the application is far wider.
2. Working in DC.
3. Female and pre-natal.
4. Stimulus and effect. That multiplier looks negative, eh?
5. “Afraid of the police?” Seriously? Perhaps that’s a key difference between conservative and not-conservative. 
6. Protesters in Wisconsin.
7. Guns and feminism … go hand in hand.
8. Fer the national Christie luv.
9. So, I’m going to be on a list?
10. Having fun in the scientific field.
11. At least one preson is confused about voluntary vs involuntary contributions.
12. Sex and men, …  and the gender academics.
13. A felony?!
14. Hanging with (very rich) scum.

Good morning.

1. A person who thinks the President is not such a Constitutional law expert after all.
2. Ohhh. rhetoric with guns. Speaking of which.
3. That pesky muliplier.
4. Pen and sword … is the pen mighter because it can sign checks … or does the checkbook fit in the sword category?
5. A really good piece on the Wisconsin thing, which unsurprisingly indicts the media for their astoundingly poor coverage.
6. More Wisconsin coverage here.
7. More rank stupidity in the government.
8. I think those are backronyms. 
9. Against the “diversity rational” for affirimative action.
10. Talking liberal/conservatives and academia.
11. The Pentacoltal Christian couple in-the-news regarding homosexuality and foster children in the UK (photo).
12. Mr Krugman, professional idiot? Hello? The country is larger than the Boston/New York/Philadelphia/DC metro area … use your economic “smarts” to consider the economic feasibility of rail and say … any given medium to small city in the MidWest, South or West. Pretend you realize that rail feasibility hinges on population density just a little bit. 
13. Looking at the choices of “experts” on CNN panels. And “they” say FOXNews is biased. Pot meet kettle.

Good morning.

1. Libya and the UN.
2. Symptomatic of our modern world?
3. A slippery slope path suggested.
4. A anthropology, in a literal sense (a logos of anthropos).
5. From pro-choice to pro-life, a journey recounted.
6. The plan all along? The backed-into-a-corner aspects of Obamacare. 
7. Where is the outrage?
8. The god gene.
9. When 1-hour charge is a pretense of workable. It seems to me a industry standard swappable battery is the way to go, that way you can get a re-fueling in minutes not hours.
10. Blogger=extremist.
11. Parkour.
12. Fantasy on Wall Street?
13. Hostile Op-Ed. 
14. 6-months to a year from now, when I note something like this, it will be assumed by my liberal interlocoturs that it never happened because I fail to google and re-locate it. 
15. A downside to no-fly.
16. Losing a foster child because of homosexuality.

Good morning.

1. Considering the filibuster.
2. A question for the climate crowd.
3. Art and geometry (and physics). The first link is there because the (mini) version was a recent purchase.
4. Not misogynism, duh. It’s tragic when a woman dies, not so much when a guy does. That’s, oddly enough, not because women are hated or thought less of, in which case it wouldn’t, you know, be very tragic.
5. Well, it’s because some of us don’t think highly of the competence of people who go into those fields.
6. A succinct rebuttal to those who bristle at the use of the term socialist in non-exact casual ways.
7. Heh, “freedom whisperer.” That’s rich.
8. A joke I’ve used with my kids.
9. Defending Mr Huckabee vis a vis Islam.
10. Why only men as priests in Orthodoxy.
11. Of the dying canaries.

Where “cutting back” = “sticking our hands deeper into your pockets”
Ain’t it just like the government, when faced with a budget crisis, to look at more ways to tax the people? From E-Commerce,

With the state and local revenue shortfalls, I suspect we will see more state governments demanding Internet sales taxes. Since the original Ban on Internet sales taxes was to foster the growth of the Internet, that mission seems to be completed.

That may mean that we, as consumers, will eventually find everything more costly on the Internet, as Internet sales taxes are permitted and sought on more and more transactions.

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Man kills 4 – uses a high capacity knife
Maybe we should ban public access to kitchen knives? Don’t laugh.

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Got an iPhone? Watch this video
Password bypassed and into the phone in 6 minutes. Moral of the story: besides wiping your data, if your phone is stolen, have recovery backup systems built into your information-rich cyber accounts.

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Geek News of the Week
NASA releases images of man-made crater on comet.

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PSP-playing is dangerous to your health
At least when you’re in a subway station. Lucky for the reality-distracted gamer that a reality-based hero was around.

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On calling evil good
California SB48 – an excerpt (bold emphasis added),

51204.5.  Instruction in social sciences shall include the early
history of California and a study of the role and contributions of
both men and women,  black Americans, American Indians,
Mexicans, Asians, Pacific Island people, and other ethnic groups
  Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans,
Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender Americans, and members of other ethnic and cultural
groups,  to the economic, political, and social development of
California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis
on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.

Unrest in the Arab world. Autocrats killing their own people. Hezbollah working with Mexican drug cartels. And what’s the UN most concerned about? Israel. Right. Meryl Yourish has more.

Speaking of which, the Saudis tried to "stimulate" their economy in hopes of avoiding the same unrest plaguing other Arab nations. Doesn’t look like the citizens will be bought off that easily. (Pity that ours are so easily bought off.)

The inverted morals of the Left; killing babies is OK, but circumcising them once their born should be against the law. Even if you’re Jewish.

Worried about an oligarchy where the rich and powerful pay to have laws favorable to them? Then never mind the Koch brothers, it’s labor unions you should be worried about. (But the Left won’t worry about them, because they’re the right kind of money and power.)

The headline reads, "Gaza militants fire missile at Be’er Sheva for first time since Gaza war". Technically correct, but Qasams fall there virtually daily, but you wouldn’t know from our news media.

The Left is still pushing the meme that "right wing ‘hate’ groups" and their uncivil rhetoric caused the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Civility Watch: The uncivil discourse has not been just in Wisconsin. Nazi imagery and racial slurs have been used in protests around the country, most recently in Massachusetts, Washington, DC, and Colorado. And while fully documented, none were mentioned by the media. Think it may have something to do with the fact that the protests were all for liberal causes?

In order to find that the ObamaCare individual mandate is constitutional, a judge had to somehow equate action with inaction. The result was never in doubt, it’s just how to get there that is the issue for these liberal judges.

CNN’s Candy Crowley put on her rose-tinted glassed once Obama was elected. I mean people were burning Bush in effigy for the previous 8 years, and now people love us. Donald Rumsfeld disagrees, and Lori Ziganto has evidence to the contrary.

It’s official: The State Department supports expelling Libya from the UN Human Right Council. Where in the world were these guys when Libya was put on the UNHRC? Back in May, we just called the HRC "flawed", which may be last year’s biggest understatement. In fact, it’s the whole UN that is flawed.

And finally, oh, that liberal media. A comparison of Tea Party protest coverage, and union protest coverage. Love that independent, unbiased media.

Good morning.

1. Who is angry at God, a cricket race.
2. Much recently was said about the strong liberal bias in (soft) Academia membership, another such bias noted.
3. Ms Palin and Libya.
4. From/about the high court … habeus and CA.
5. Conspiracy and the lone wolf, which is perhaps an insult to wolves.
6. Unusual ice cream. Fifteen years ago, on account of my eldest having an extended hospital stay after birth we had a quart or so of frozen breast milk in the freezer. We made hot chocolate. 
7. Budget naivte becomes partisan “hackery”. A month or so ago a study was cited (WSJ) that investigated some 50-100 nations over the last three decades and their methods and successes at attacking budget deficit. It was found that the successful attempts did not (statistically) raise taxes but instead focused on cutting spending. The most successful were those that included small tax cuts and aggressive spending cutting. Those that were not successful focused on raising taxes to address shortfalls. 
8. The West is beginning to notice Metropolitan Hilarion. 
9. Economics and education.
10. Qaddafi’s fundamental problem. More on Libya here.
11. Non-defense of human ontological dignity and a consequence.
12. Mr Rezko, not in the news.
13. Miracles.
14. Obamacare and consequences unfolding.