Good morning.

1. Public sector unions … across the pond.
2. For the Palin fans.
3. Well, I’m a Cassian fan … but I’d note he got his eight (not seven) sins from Evagrius.
4. A liberal talks about his Obama disillusionment.
5. Heh. And also on the ligher side, do watch this.
6. Snow rececession not warming … will you see this noted by the anthro-warming brainwashed crowd?
7. Tunisia.
8. Oddly enough the left notes (every?) use of violence tinged rhetoric they can find (why?) … but gives their own side a pass. Even those on their own side who use that rhetoric after just recently blaming the AZ violence on the same.
9. A question … my question is why does anything believe a word Mr Obama says ever.
10. A lawyer (and non-DOMA supporter) questions the wisdom of Mr Obama’s passive aggressive tactics.
11. And for those who approve of the tactic … consider it on the other foot.
12. The effect of unions “to make it harder to find work” … consider we are in a recession in which unemployment is the largest remaining issue.
13. Ya think?
14. Regulators and mission creep.

Technology tracks truancy
In Anaheim, the school district is using GPS technology to keep track of habitually truant students.

“The idea is for this not to feel like a punishment, but an intervention to help them develop better habits and get to school,” said Miller Sylvan, regional director for AIM Truancy Solutions.

Things sure have change from when I was in school! Back then there wasn’t a feel-good “let’s not make this a punishment” mentality regarding school truancy – if you weren’t at school when you were supposed to be, then the next time you were, you also found yourself sitting in the Vice Principal’s office.

Not all parents were supportive.

“I feel like they come at us too hard, and making kids carry around something that tracks them seems extreme,” said Raphael Garcia, whose 6th grader has six unexcused absences.

…

“This makes us seem like common criminals,” Garcia said.

…

Juan Cruz’s mom, Cristina, said she supports the program and hopes it helps her son get to school – and stay there.

“I understand that he’s been missing class. He’s one of six children, and we can’t always keep an eye on him,” she said in Spanish. “I think this is a good idea that will help him.”

So much for expecting the parents to be in control of their children.

I guess it takes a government to run our lives.

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You’ve lived worked long enough, there, buddy
A survey suggests that an aging workforce, bolstered by those who put off their retirement, will end up hogging jobs.

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So long, bookstores, we hardly knew you
Al Mohler comments on the impending demise of the brick and mortar bookstore.

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Concealed Carry on Campus in Texas
Ever notice how virtually all mass shootings take place in so-called “gun-free” zones.

Good morning.

1. Good links (for thinking as it were) from Brandon.
2. Well, if government should find happiness for its people … looks like the way to prosperity in concert with non-individual honor/shame society is the goal, eh?
3. Currents not driven by dynamo.
4. Getting pretty close to the spread of democracy theme of Mr Bush.
5. Talking Jersey. Here too.
6. And … the Democrats holding the line against budget cuts.
7. Not the biggest drinkers, just the most lethal.
8. Huh? 
9. Union and cporporate influence on politics.
10. A pointed question for Fox News.
11. A missionary.
12. Violence and threats in Wisconsin.
13. Perhaps THE interesting question asked about Wisconsin.
14. Pizza, saving a life.

Good morning.

1. LOTR from another point-of-view. Yikes.
2. Urban deconstruction.
3. The man-who-needs-to-buy-a-saddle noted. A co-conspiratorial advice.
4. “higher productivity is not the answer” (to employment) … which, taken to its logical conclusion, is a call for a return to subsistence farming, after all employment was almost 100% then.
5. Zapow!
6. Cooi. A liberal against the teachers union in Wisconsin (or perhaps he’s just confused as to whom the “people” are in this case, i.e., the taxpayers).
7. Intervention?
8. Ms Arendt got excommunicated by the intellectual elite for suggestions of Jewish complicity with the Nazi genocide, I guess she just chose the wrong audience.
9. Economics is a kernel, not the whole picture. Reductionism isn’t normally all that helpful in describing the human experience.
10. Libya.
11. Commit to memory.

Back to the routine. So … whaddeyemiss?

1. Brandon notes a series of discussions on the ethics of lying here, here and here.
2. Some common ground betwixt Atheists and Theists regarding the existence of God.
3. An evangelical view of how to go about seeking God … missing the whole fasting, rejection of the passions, and prayer thing, which as Lent approaches is a thing which stands out.
4. Not, I think the innovation he suspects as it’s likely that Stalin or Hitler beat him to it.
5. Comparing Al Jazeera and the UN.
6. Time to panic? But hey, at least the President is unserious about the problem.
7. Sorrow.
8. Words from Iraq.
9. Self referential words from Mr Krugman.
10. Time to step away slowly.
11. Putting Wisconsin unions in perspective.

Muammar Gaddafi, like any good magician, is employing misdirection to try to avoid happening to him what is happening in other Arab countries. “Hey Palestinians, let’s you and him fight!”

Is the Obama White House turning social media into State Run Media 2.0?  There’s a bit of media sour grapes in that charge, but it’s also true that the more the White House does an end-run around the media, the more they can paint with whatever rose-colored paintbrush they want.

Really, is Israel the main problem in the Middle East? Even those who are protesting in Arab countries are protesting their own governments, not Israel.

And if Obama has lost Bill Maher, he’s lost liberal America.

Ignorant 2nd Amendment related comment by a pundit (# 1)

But whether you think a ban on police-style assault weapons such as the one Jared Lee Loughner used in Tucson is good policy or not, it is curious to see that Republicans are not even bothering to make legitimate arguments against such proposals.

Note: The Glock 19, used in the Tucson shooting, is not a police-style assault weapon (whatever that means). It is a semi-automatic handgun, used by military, police, and civilians in both law enforcement, self defense, and sport shooting.

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Ignorant 2nd Amendment related comment by a pundit (# 2)

Even the most conservative jurists held for decades that the Second Amendment was meant to protect state militias rather than an individual right to own weapons.

Note: Reference the Militia Act of 1792 (several years after the Bill of Rights, by the way). Regardless, the means to have a well regulated militia is by the enumeration of a right to the people.

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Ignorant 2nd Amendment related comment by a pundit (# 3)

Members of the narrow majority on the Supreme Court who believe that the Second Amendment establishes an individual right to bear arms would not hold that the Constitution protects one’s right to own a nuclear submarine.

Note: Darn! I’d been hoping to get one of them there nucular subs.

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Ignorant 2nd Amendment related comment by a pundit (# 4)

No one has argued that gun laws were the reason Loughner carried out his attack. What they suggest is that someone who wants to carry out an attack might be less able to do so without legal access to automatic weapons.

Note: Agreed. And the public has very little legal access to automatic weapons (which is probably why we use semi-automatic weapons).

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Why the euphoria over Egypt’s change in power?
Usually, a buyer wants to know what it is he’s purchasing before he buys it… So, Mubarak steps down, and there’s dancing in the streets, Obama applauds the Change, pundits drool over how Obama was – somehow – the catalyst. Yet no one is sure exactly who or what will replace Mubarak (other than the military, which is essentially what was there before).

Now, with Mubarak thumbing his nose at the president, the Obama administration may manage to achieve what only few governments in history have done: alienate their enemies as well as their friends. Worse, Obama’s actions have regionalized the Egyptian conflict. KSA has belayed Mubarak on the sheer cliff that he dangles from. It has forced a public confrontation between Mubarak and his regional allies and the unrest sweeping the Arab world. If Mubarak goes spinning into the abyss, the House of Saud will find itself pulled right after it.

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Border States tired of waiting for the Feds to act
Interesting. In New Mexico, the first female Hispanic governor in the U.S., Susana Martinez (R), issued an executive order directing police to ask the immigration status of criminal suspects, thereby ending the state’s sanctuary policy.

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Finger Motion Car Stereo Control

A new device is being presented to technologists this week that lets you control your car stereo by finger movements while your hands are still gripping the steering wheel.

Oh… I foresee some unexpected road rage incidents in the works if any of your finger movements, intended to turn up The Beatles, are misinterpreted by the driver next to you.

It’s not often (well, ever) that a Friday Link Wrap-up would have breaking news, but as I type this, Hosni Mubarak has stepped down as President and put the military in charge, not his recently-named VP. This is a historic day for Egypt, as it now has its first living ex-President. Barry Rubin runs down the "now what?" scenarios.

Some town in the US, including one suburb of Atlanta, have a law requiring each household to own a gun. These towns have much lower crime rates than their neighbors. But with the cases going through the courts on the constitutionality of the ObamaCare individual mandate to buy health insurance, and with South Dakota considering a bill requiring gun ownership, Glenn Reynolds goes over the major differences between the two.

Reaganomics vs Obamanomics and getting us out of a recession.

In his first speech as Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron argued that a shared national identity prevents extremism more so than multiculturalism, and indeed, the latter may encourage it. If you have no connection to your country, you have no problem burning it.

Good morning. Interrogative day at link central. 😀

1. Money lost, is that stimulatory?
2. Liberation or conquest?
3. Zoom or huff-puff?
4. How to control costs in healthcare?
5. Who didn’t expect this? After all while there is consensus that spending should be cut there hasn’t been any consensus on what to cut. It’s why the Left’s “plan”, raising taxes is more feasible (even though raising taxes as a method of addressing deficits doesn’t actually work) is what will likely win. There’s no consensus required to just tax more. To bad the easy solution is the one that doesn’t work in this case.
6. Why oh why will the anthropogenic climate people not read stuff like this? I would call attention to the study of weather data for the last 140 years … noting “So we were surprised that none of the three major indices of climate variability that we used show a trend of increased circulation going back to 1871.” You know the recent (Krugman!) notes about increased storms and droughts. All confirmation bias. Ooops.
7. Is this a statement that the Palin haters would get on board with?
8. Is this not exactly to the point?
9. So what eactly is solertia and eustochia?
10. Is this a sign of our decline?
11. How to find a path between progress and history?
12. Abortion is here. How about that back alley?
13. Speaking of abortion, is this useful? At least he’s not bringing up the regrettable Violinist thang.

Good morning.

1. More grist for the sociology departments lacking conservatives conversation. 
2. 27% … that’s basically almost all the Democrats … Seems to me you could argue he’s back ot the base and that’s the extent of it.
3. What passes for “not depraved.”
4. Well, that’s one asthetic, there are others. It is my understanding that an asthetic is a method by which you judge art … and after choosing your asthetic criticism is the application of the asthetic to artworks. If you want to use an asthetic that is sympathetic to ethics, then juding art on how it mananges to expose beauty would be in line with a view that ethics is also an enterprise trying to uncover beauty (or the good). 
5. What truth to power really looks like, the left’s preconceptions notwithstanding.
6. Getting it upside down. Parents not the government are responsible for the well being of their children, regulation of governmen schools is done to try to accomplish that. 
7. Iago and Rummy.
8. Booom. A less violent event here.
9. Talking cosmology.
10. Accuracy.
11. What Nicene Christians can learn from the LDS (Mormon).
12. Democrat misstep noted. Here too.
13. And some thoughts (and links) on Darwin.

Good morning. 0 (F) this morning … expecting -10 or less tomorrow. Cool, eh? (heh)

1. Regulation.
2. Mr Krugman talks more on climate. Oops.
3. High in the Coptic government. Some more here from Japan.
4. A book noted.
5. How to jump to a really bad example to (not?) demonstrate a point. The question is asked, in sports, does firing the coach help win championships. If it didn’t why do they keep doing it over and over and over?
6. Speaking of sports, a good example.
7. More sports talk here.
8. Liberals sounding like “right wingers”.
9. How that budget neutrality works, by moving it to kill state budgets … oh, and your budget too.
10. All the hypocrisy that’s fit to print.
11. You can choose your ideology … or not. Perhaps by choose he meant change.
12. Of Cairo and Chicago.

Good morning.

1. Inability to express something in words, alas, doesn’t mean it’s incoherent. You can’t, for example, use words to describe how you even ride a bike.
2. Talking about the Coptic situation.
3. Mr Wilders.
4. Stupid economics tricks … a prime example to counter the notion that skepticism and IQ don’t go hand in hand.
5. Stealth drone. More fun tech toys here.
6. And it won’t be sold in the US.
7. 2/14 geek giftery.
8. On Mr Christie and the trains and that tunnel thing.
9. Some suggestions on how to find happiness.
10. Religious freedom and blasphemy laws.
11. One “shocking” ad banned from the Superbowl in most markets.
12. Heh.
13. A long piece on suggesting anti-semitism and (some) new atheists.
14. A “cool” contest noted.
15. Hmm. My first impulse is not to side with the injured party. 
16. Maths and the world.

Hmmmm…
Dance the night away, I guess.

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$4.65B profit? Corporate greed!
Yet, no outrage? Oh, right – they aren’t “Big Oil”.

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College = Time to party?
Despite what some of my acquaintances think, I still posit that this is a relatively new phenomenon (i.e., within the last 30 years). When I attended university, in the late 70s, we knew where the party schools were and which majors were party majors. And “Spring Break” was not the orgy it is now. However, the party / socialize mentality seems to be quite ubiquitous nowadays.

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Do you really have 1,538 friends?
Facebook may ask you to identify your friends, via FB photos, for security access to your account. Better check the mug of the friend of your cousin’s kid that you met last summer while on vacation. I’m just sayin’.

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Kids and technology
Yes, preschoolers are more adept at using technology than tying their shoes (unless their shoes lace with velcro). Homeschoolers have long known that kids are capable of learning at a very young age (though they may not be ready).

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Ink from the Cloud
Cool!

Good morning.

1. Abstinence and condom vouchers? Apparently the left things those things are really really expensive.
2. Freedom and the Middle East (and North Africa).
3. The PC movement and consequence.
4. An administration like no other … or not.
5. Breaking new ground on the “Open” front too.
6. Heh.
7. Of economics and regulation.
8. A book recommended.
9. Regime change, here and here.
10. Three Presidents.
11. Beltway spending practices and a comparison noted.
12. The regrettable SEC.

In more Civil Discourse Watch, here’s folks on the Left calling for riots, or at least pointing to rioting as a good example.

The failure of the repeal of ObamaCare can be laid at Democrats feet. We’ll see how well that works for them in 2012. (Didn’t work so well in 2010.)

In which country in the Middle East do Arabs have the greatest civil liberties? Click here to find out.

We keep hearing this refrain.

Shortly after taking office, President Obama traveled to Cairo to declare a new day in U.S. relations with the Muslim world – saying there was "no straight line" to building democratic societies in the Middle East.

The June 2009 address was in part intended to show a clean break from a George W. Bush-era "freedom agenda" of promoting electoral democracies across the region. Yet Obama now finds himself forced to move much closer to that world view as he escalates pressure on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to make immediate changes.

Regarding national defense and now foreign policy, Dubya had it right. Slowly, but too slowly, Obama is realizing this.

Law enforcement could have stopped the Fort Hood shooting by Major Hasan if political correctness hadn’t prevented them.

And finally, some bad investments. Click for a larger version.