Yes, it’s that time of the week again, where I toss out a bunch of links that I was too lazy to do a full blog post on.

Turns out the Iraq war didn’t break the bank.  It’s understandable that you might think that, but that only indicates a need to get your news from more sources.  The MSM loves to parrot DNC talking points.

(Liberal) feminism is dead.  Long live (conservative) feminism!

Jim Wallis said that Marvin Olasky (World magazine editor) “lies for a living” when Olasky noted that Wallis got $200,000 from George Soros.  When it was pointed out that he, in fact, did, then came the abject apology in sackcloth and ashes, “Well, it was so small I forgot.”  UPDATE: Wallis has issued a formal apology.

Three months ago, James Cameron was ready to “call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads”, speaking of those who dispute anthropogenic global warming.  At the very last minute, after changing his demands over and over for how a debate was to be run, he cancelled.  Now that takes guts.  Or something.

In England, teachers are dropping history lessons on the Holocaust and the Crusades, for fear of offending Muslims who are taught Holocaust denial and a different view of the Crusades at local mosques.  They’re afraid of challenging “anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils”.  So much for academia being the standard bearer of truth and free speech.

A back door repeal of the First Amendment by … social workers?  Well, when liberal ideologues get ahold of professional organizations, nuttiness does ensue.  Look at most unions.

And finally, a US district judge put a temporary halt to embryonic stem cell research.  Some believe this will devastate scientific research, but  Steve Breen puts it in perspective.  (Click for a larger image.)

So… where’s the oil now? Either Obama really is the Messiah he was portrayed as, and it was his mere presence alone that healed our earth; or, maybe, we aren’t quite up to predicting global effects of non-globally sized events? A couple of months ago, it wasn’t difficult to find commentaries declaring that we were were on the brink of planetary destruction, that the Gulf of Mexico would never recover, that oil spill was a foretaste of the effects of Global Warming Climate Change, that God was allowing this disaster as punishment for our sins on Mother Earth. Yet now we see that Obama really has the power to heal the Earth – scratch that – Yet now we see how inadequate we might be in our attempts at extrapolating data, on a global scale, over extended time periods – well – even short time periods. Common sense should tell us that our efforts would be better served by addressing known issues that we currently face, as opposed to potential issues we might face. (also see Joe Carter’s post)

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Illegal aliens allowed to get a New Mexico drivers license… so, why not allow them to purchase firearms as well (why should that “right” be infringed upon?). The argument for giving illegal aliens drivers licenses is that it provides for better enforcement of insurance, etc. If that were so, then why not allow illegal aliens to purchase firearms, thereby giving them direct access to the right of self defense?

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Well, at least they weren’t burning the books (but a pragmatist would have donated them to a local library). Or have a used-book sale or something to recoup some money?

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When in doubt, ask someone who has actually followed the rules. Gabriella, a naturalized U.S. citizen, educates a Tucson City Council member on why the City of Tucson should not sue the State of Arizona over SB1070.

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Two exo-solar planets transiting the same star… geekfest time.j

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The Ghosts of World War II. Have not confirmed the validity of these images but, if true, an interesting use of Photoshop linking the past with the present.

Good morning.

1. Church and state and Turkey.
2. Market in Poland, a photo-essay.
3. Vindictiveness and the Admin.
4. On that hard pullout date and strategy.
5. More on Park51.
6. A conservative surprised at epistemic closure from the left.
7. I have yet to see mention of this from the left. Odd that. And this is spot on … the concept of hate crimes are an outrage.
8. Somebody somewhere didn’t like Wall-E.
9. Fun with banks.
10. 100 years, and some shared thoughts.
11. Bike tech lust.
12. Weight loss tips that beat licking raw eggs all hollow.

Good morning.

1. Divination.
2. For those that need a Bastiat clobbering.
3. An economically well modeled computer game played (HT: CT).
4. Talking beer.
5. More on the Koyzis essay I wrote about last night … for my reading it seems that what is presented as Koyzis ‘reading” of Mills is better than Mr Nivens. 
6. The jam ends, the cause … regulation?
7. H-Fit?
8. Our President in a nutshell.
9. Firestorm.
10. Criticism of the right from the right.
11. Sex and the single life.

Good morning.

1. Blogs and peer review.
2. Yes, a tax cut is not a payment.
3. Someday it will occur to someone on the left, that there are two ways to attack the deficit by cutting spending or raising taxes, alas not today however.
4. I can’t even imagine how to spend money like that, do they burn it?
5. Stony Ithaca, a place to set my head?
6. A repulsive thing.
7. From the “I can’t imagine any need for secrecy in wartime” department.
8. Housing.
9. 25%!!! Amazing. A cultural divide if there ever was one.
10. Hope and change transform.
11. Books read and micro-reviews supplied.
12. As life imitates Airplane.
13. On war, which theory of war posits that making public a “I’m quitting and going home” date as a having any strategic value?

Good morning.

1. Upcharge for extra mass.
2. Cinema.
3. Low church and liturgy.
4. A the Quantum people attack back.
5. We are more alike than different.
6. Traffic.
7. A good word for Mr Carter.
8. Not me.
9. Heh.
10. He knew that, but didn’t seem fit to mention that the failures were basically all on the government side (especially when you recall the safety equipment is by government mandate).
11. Suffering for art’s sake.
12. The state of Mr Obama’s buddies state.
13. The professional left.
14. Goin’ green … is clearly more fun if you’re a wealthy professional humorist.
15. The Cato purge apparently wasn’t.

I had this joke I was going to try to tell about how now that I’m back biking a lot more regularly but have a new puppy, we have this symbiotic relationship. She licks the sweat of me after a ride reaping salt … and I don’t have to take showers anymore. But I decided not to tell it, aren’t y’all grateful? 😉

Good morning.

1. A word, Eurosclerosis … used … and stimulus measurement. Why oh why is there spending out to 2015?
2. A non-story begins … and ends. 
3. The despicable left.
4. More stupid liberal tricks here … and for measure more ways to curb your freedom.
5. On ethnicity and church.
6. Tanks for the memories.
7. Ten maxims of advice for prayer.
8. Jokes from the CBO.
9. The mosque kerfuffle and cognitive bias.
10. St. Nicholas … a before picture.
11. Testing QM.
12. Duh.

You know racism is seriously on the decline when the New York Times is left to complain about the insufficient diversity of third base coaches in baseball.

Highly-placed Muslims around the word are coming out against the mosque near Ground Zero.  In fact, there is apparently a widespread belief among Muslims that opposing any mosque construction is a sin, so we’re probably not hearing as much opposition as it out there.

For the purposes of the November campaign, Democrats won’t be trying to sell ObamaCare as a cost savings.  Rather, they’re going to try to sell it as an improvement to health care, never mind the cost.  Oh, and that cost?  Paid for by the wealthy, so don’t worry.  Like they have an unlimited supply of cash to finance this administration’s unprecedented red-ink-o-rama.  The link has loads of claims in a recent presentation and how they just don’t pass "Common Sense 101".  One of the slides says that the Dems will work to improve the bill.  For cryin’ out loud, it just passed!  Why wasn’t it improved before passing it, if the improvements are so obvious?

New unemployment claims rose by 500,000…unexpectedly!  We’ve tried it the Democrats way for over a year now, and the stimulus just ain’t stimulating anything.  But their solution to failed plans is more of the same.  Prepare for more unexpectedness in the months to come.

Chuck Asay says it best, in pictures.  (Click for a larger version.)

Good morning. So … my eldest daughter gets her drivers permit today. Tempus fugit, eh?

1. Iraq.
2. One man’s speculation on Mr Obama’s religious belief.
3. One might note that this “confusion” is self-inflicted. 
4. Diplomacy and US relations.
5. Have you given?
6. On freedom.
7. 19 years later.
8. Culture of corruption.
9. Stupid liberal tricks … noted.
10. Religious freedoms?
11. On the value of a woman.
12. Two visions.

Good morning.

1. We had some discussions of teachers … and pay. It doesn’t seem to me they not highly paid.
2. More on St. Nicholas in the context of the Cordoba mosque.
3. A car that says “I am a geek” in all caps. Or is it a nerd?
4. A defense of theology from an outsider.
5. A photo contest.
6. Cold war -> Hot War?
7. More Muslims against “the” mosque.
8. Hockey stick and climate … and you can follow links to the original paper, in which I thought one of the unfortunate (for climate scientists) is the remark that little to no contributions have been garnered from the statistical academic community w.r.t. this matter.
9. Have kids.
10. To get up to speed on Austrian economics.
11. Noting the ephemeral future of the gay population. 

Good morning.

1. Stupid union tricks.
2. On the Mosque kerfuffle, our President leads the way, and his leadership has an effect, commentary from an Arabic media figure,  and a representative of the left wing media response. 
3. I have a question for those who offer that zoning should be blind to particularities of faith? What then of St. Nicholas (the Greek Orthodox church) which was an pre-existing church prior to 9/11 but which was damaged. The Greek diocese offered plans to rebuild the church but was rebuffed with the note that the height of their church should not be higher than the buildings planned for the Trade Center memorial. Oddly enough the plans for the Mosque in question are also higher than the buildings planned. It seems to me the left in their responses has a definite religious bias in their stance.
4. Statistics and preschool(ers).
5. Rockets and your toilet, two things you wouldn’t normally associate.
6. In praise of Mr Ryan.
7. Mr Geithner, on housing. Oddly enough what he said is just about exactly the same thing I wrote on Fan/Fred and their effect on the recession.
8. The Fed and the failure of monetary policy.
9. How not to do conservation.
10. Obama and the M1 Garand.

Good morning.

1. Radical Islam and malaria and an argument from analogy.
2. I liked the 2nd poster.
3. Guns from the left.
4. And two from the right in response to Mr Obama’s twin statements on the Mosque near ground zero, here and here.
5. Beauty and the bike-shop.
6. Yes, that’s right “web polls” are less accurate than professional opinion polls, which for themselves are as valuable as a bucket of spit.
7. Work and the bike.
8. A little religious freedom comes to Turkey.
9. Vaccinations.
10. Talking about quantum gravity.
11. Higher education.
12. On Mr Hitchens.

That’s what happens when I take a Friday vacation day.

Democrats are in a struggle with Republicans to see who can repeal portions of ObamaCare first.  And now that Harry Reid has actually read the bill, he’s finally realized that this is going to hurt the hospitals in his state more than it’s going to help them.  As much as Democrats complained about the delays in getting the thing passed, you’d think they’d have read it by the time it did.

Put Obama in the Oval Office, and he’ll repair our standing with the world…or so went the campaign thought.  A poll of Arab public opinion, supposedly an area where Bush had destroyed our credibility, shows that little had changed.  In fact, some indicators are even worse than under the eeevil Bush.

A very interesting article suggesting that Evangelical Churches are the new “Mainline” Christian churches, and that the traditionally “mainline” denominations, as they have become more liberal, shrink and thus have less influence on society (spiritually speaking).  A very good interview of Rodney Stark, who’s been following this a long time.

I’ve been asked, regarding the Tea Partier’s wish to reduce government spending, why now?  Why not during Bush or Clinton or even Reagan.  I keep saying that the spending going on now is unprecedented, and Bruce McQuain explains some of the reasons and ramifications of this spend-fest.

How’s that stimulus stimulating the economy?  Not so well, actually.

The “classy” Left, taking its usual name-calling tact against the Tea Party.  And lest you dismiss this as some loner in a basement, it’s got huge funding partners.

And finally, a study in religious tolerance from Chuck Asay.  (Click for a larger image.)

Good morning.

1. More antisemitism noted.
2. English usage corrected … or not.
3. “More” border security.
4. On that flight attendant.
5. How long will that candidate last?
6. A pair of books noted.
7. An evolutionary ethics (?!) scholar. Heh.
8. Climate and the Russian heat wave.
9. Of suffering and truth.
10. Some photo-essays.
11. Is outrage!
12. Keynesian angst.
13. The gospel is not limited to a social accomplishment, or something like that.

Good morning.

1. So you know.
2. Healthcare news.
3. An logical rhetorical fallacy can occasionally be apt. 
4. A lesson for the day.
5. Liberals and stupid numbers tricks. When chiding one news source for not being demographically “flat” noting without comment that the other similar sources are likewise not flat is just silly.
6. More on recession and supply and a reply.
7. Taxes and graphs.
8. Ooooh, GM pulls a profit, not mentioned is that they did so primarily selling SUVs and … if the Feds dump $50billion in your lap and you can’t pull a profit … well, give it up.
9. Children and dignity, fail.
10. Antisemitism.
11. Prop 8 news from a neutral corner.
12. On Eat, Pray, Love.