Well, the on-site work last night went past midnight, hence my cunning plan for a post from the hotel didn’t quite work out.

1. Some four months ago or so, I read that book on recommendation by an acquaintance. I’d recommend this one too. I was joking that my reading that was the unintentional cause of the Putin/Crimean adventure, and that I’d better be careful about reading World War history in the near future.
2. So, “how you hold your drink” apparently is making the rounds. A rebuttal (without mentioning beer helmets … wine helmets anyone?)
3. Saint Gregory Palamas on the Zen Koan “Does a dog have Buddha Nature?”
4. A man remembered.
5. Whew!
6. What happens when you misread “Hetpa” as “Herpa” … and go into a post thinking it’s about snakes.
7. A whole winter’s worth for a continent is not “weather”, it’s getting close to being “climate”, eh.
8. Or to put it more succinctly, you should be going to, not running from.
9. Why check? Who has standing to sue?
10. Aristophanes revenge.
11. Mr Obama misses Tom & Jerry.
12. This will make news.

G’day

1. So, how does a liberal conscious of the Black slavery history think gun control a good idea?
2. Alas, it is indeed pretty much a guarantee of diversity.
3. Bracket madness of a ‘nother sort.
4. Actually, neither of those resemble science. Actually science more resembles hunting for problems or experiments that are interesting and feasible, doing/solving them. Rinse and repeat.
5. The modern mirror.
6. What we want vs what the our beltway masters think we want.
7. What throwing away information gets you.
8. Not 19th century, alas. Those ignorant of history, doomed to, well, look ignorant at best.
9. The term “Oriental” is Not Racist. The loony left notwithstanding racist terms are not “accidentally” insulting or racist.
10. So, a study finds drug to be ineffective. Which wins, the study or the drug?
11. That invincible scientific consensus. Policy momentum (like the above) will ignore that for quite some time to come.
12. So, the liberal echo chamber has been pushing that one reason to ignore the Koch brothers (on energy matters) is their investments in oil sands. Hmm. I guess this means one reason to ignore Mr Gore and the like are their investments in alternative energy and carbon offset providers. Consistency is one of those rare things.
13. Noah and some good signs.
14. High drone.
15. Hobby Lobby. Read the brief, note the lack of counter argument from the left of the aisle that actually address the points made.
16. Or as the demotivational poster puts it, “None of us is as dumb as all of us”.
17. It’s called, “education” for a reason ya knucklehead.
18. Word migration.

Well, 6 day work-week. Woo! Five down, one to go.

1. Feminists seeking a clue. And a counter opinion from other women here (see esp. #9).
2. More liberal feminist cluelessness here.
3. This, on the other hand is what real feminism looks like.
4. A one liner to live (and vote) by.
5. Mr Obama’s FDA, screwing things up one day at a time.
6. Parental obvious observation.
7. Liberal icon dies. Nobody living or dead has done more to raise the opinion and consciousness of gay social issues than he has. Odd that.
8. Climate, extreme weather and cost.
9. Here’s what liberals will ignore or dismiss, and it will cost us all a lot of money.
10. 8 questions and the Ukraine.
11. Some Noah cinema thoughts. For my 2 cents, if Noah is seen struggling with the tiller to keep the boat safe against wind and wave … that’s not Noah, that’s Gilgamesh. The Noah and Epic of G. narratives both had a arc-like boat as key elements in the story. The essential difference highlighted by the latter story (Noah) was that Noah’s arc had no tiller, God not man saves is the lesson. So, a litmus test for this film is this the story of Gilgamesh or Noah, is Man or God your source of salvation? You can tell by asking if the boat has a tiller.
12. Lesson regarding Mr Obama and political speeches. Look at the statement in 2008. Look at the subsequent cuts. The statement in 2008 is a bald faced lie.
13. Well, if you want proof that the NSA has cracked https. Here it is.
14. “Humans can …”, hah! Not me! I’m only good for about 6 to 8, well realistically maybe 100.
15. Horrible headline. What? The Earth gave a hip fake to the Sun and did what? Slipped past the blockers on the left? Riiiiight.
16. And to end this list for today, something to help you smile.

Woops, sorry. Missed yesterday.

1. Government stupidity, example number (big number)+1. Don’t they have, you know, useful things to do with our money?
2. Explaining one of the recent Obamacare court challenges.
3. Liberals seem to not a fans of “pass it so we can find out what’s in it” either.
4. Fun with art.
5. This headline made me wonder if there is a hockey player with a name almost but not exactly Fermion.
6. A lesson for you parents who try to tell your kids Santa isn’t real (hint: he is real).
7. That squares with my intuitions on that.
8. Pre-information age org-chart.
9. Bureaucrats should be shot more often for malpractice.
10. I’ll be we all know colleagues like that.
11. Liberal icon rips women and minorities for not cracking books open and studying hard, … oh wait.
12. And come to think of it …. examine some of those assumptions.
13. Yikes.
14. That “historic” drought in Southern California. Odd that same years they had their previous drought years the Midwest had record cold and snow. Hmmm.
15. Interesting.

Ok. ‘Nother week, ‘nother dollar

1. Mr Obama’s sanctions invoke replies, such as this and this. Few typically note that we are using Russia for supply lines to Afghanistan operations when they remark on the weakness of said sanctions.
2. Purple-ness brings to mind the Bulwer-Lytton contest, which if I was more clever I’d know when the 2014 results were to be out … and if I was even more clever I’d enter.
3. Gosh, lots of uses for this, few of the licit or moral.
4. Chicago and St. Patrick’s Day.
5. Yah, if you believe that, we’ve got submarine pens in Arizona to sell you.
6. This book looks interesting.
7. That “more open” Presidency, yet another promise not kept, eh?
8. Insanely cool … and he’s right.
9. A modern analogy for Lent.
10. Solzhenitsyn and the Crimea. Last night I had a chat with a Romanian friend. He put a large part of the onus on Yeltsin, for drunkenly allowing the “split up” to follow Stalin’s division of state boundaries and not suggesting regions work it out for themselves or to use more rational historical/ethnic boundaries. The Crimea just an outworking of Stalin’s assigning the Crimea (vast majority Russian, some Tartar, and finally Ukrainians) to Ukraine. Errors along the southwest boarder with Moldavia, Ukraine and Romania were mentioned as well.
11. Our liberal teaching establishment, getting the hind end foremost.
12. The other side of being part of GM, i.e., Government Motors. But the government won’t be to blame just as they skipped out on the BP disaster. It’s always the other guy’s fault, except when you are in a extremely regulated industry it’s the ultimately the watcher’s fault.

Links?

1. Regarding Mr Obama’s latest cunning jobs plan.
2. Something to keep in mind regarding “putting pressure on Russia”.
3. Oh. I see. Never mind.
4. Not. A. Science.
5. Someone not following the football/concussion discussion.
6. If they don’t know, how exactly is the IRS going to assign penalties?
7. There’s a cute instrument.
8. So, apparently, a New York paper released a map of gun owners. Texas follows suit.
9. They know they are precursors because they found their fossilized plane tickets.
10. Your RNA on/off switch discovered.
11. This is the part of Jules Verne’s Voyage to the Center of the Earth that was overlooked in the cinematic renditions, all the participants had gills. Mr Verne forgot that that water, unlike air, is in-compressible.
12. Yikes.

G’day

1. Don’t end it, fold spindle and mutilate.
2. Some grist for when feminists praise prostitution, ’cause they do.
3. Politics would be more appropriately garbed.
4. Journalism and some thoughts on cuddling with monsters.
5. Efficient? At what?!
6. The starlet and responsibility.
7. Immoral use of highway law.
8. So, the question arises, is that the pro-abortion fringe … or is it mainstream.
9. Dads.
10. Yet another person who needs to read the Gulag Archipelago.
11. Bubbles are complicated.
12. Bars in thar woods.

Woo. Two days in a row. Cooking with, err, steam?

1. Some grist to counter Che chic. And what looks like a good book for the inbox to boot.
2. Speaking of the inbox, here’s another.
3. Two posts on freedom of speech, here in the US it is apparently falling out of favor and in Russia where one thinks the press has little freedom, this might be a counter-example of that notion.
4. A project.
5. I wonder at the use of the adjective “hopeful”. Not what comes to mind for me at least.
6. Zap, snarf snarf.
7. This post brings to mind the remark I noted by Mr Schraub a few weeks ago that government was uniquely situated to act fairly. Yah, right.
8. They should eliminate Asian quotas for schools, five years after the elite schools become 60+ percent asian … the majority whole slacker student attitudes would do some disappearing. Do us all some good.
9. Yah, that makes sense. Historically speaking that means, they would be seeking damages from West African nations, Spain, and the Dutch.  Good luck on that.
10. Apropos of the above.
11. Cheap but cool.
12. Fracking did not drive Texas economic boom.
13. No reason I can think of.
14. Which means it probably isn’t true.
15. The administrations remains stuck on stupid.

Well, I’m back to exercising regularly, and when I added the Clean Week (first week of Lent) services-every-night to my schedule, blogging went south. Which means it is likely that Holy week will suffer similarly at this spot. Links are backed up. So … without further ado

1. One post on the Ukraine.
2. Moral lessons for other countries in similar situations.
3. A question posted to the left of the aisle.
4. At hourly wages … that’s a lot of money for little business. In the “real world” they’d be bankrupt. Alas, they’re working for the government so the bankruptcy is just moral.
5. And for their anticipated not-profits, a 5 billion dollar bailout already planned.
6. Heh.
7. This is not “a truly appalling story”, if true, a whole passel of school administrators should be rotting in jail after having the crap beat out of them. If I was that girl’s father, I’d be on the warpath with my new life’s purpose to ruin the lives of a bunch of idiot.
8. Speaking of which, a little more “taking of law” in to own hands leads to this nonsense.
9. Creativity? or not.
10. A homily.
11. An anti-drug campaign.
12. Drones, fun for everyone.
13. Blech!
14. A dad grows up.
15. On death panels.
16. An unintended consequence of Obamacare, many more doctors running for the opposition party.
17. So, the IRS scandal “nothing to hide” which is why emails are not being passed on and Ms Lerner (having been fired) takes the fifth.
18. Tech and teaching.

So, Lent has begun (and will begin tomorrow for y’all in the West … and some suggestions). I would suggest for any in the Western tradition would be, in the next few days (through Thursday night) to look up a local Orthodox parish and see if they are doing the Canon of St Andrew (in English). Nothing exemplifies the spirit of Lent more than that service.

1. So, the Ukraine is in the news. Alas for the administration as noted here and noted here.
2. Guns in Crimea. One of the interesting things I learned reading this book, was that the “Charge of the Light Brigade” contrary to popular conceptions was not the failure it was pretended to be.
3. More we can learn from the Crimea.
4. Whales, not Wales, and the significance of “White”.
5. Global warming, 17 years and counting.
6. Walmart and Logistics.
7. Them beaches.
8. Noting the obvious.
9. Folding tech.
10. Hammurabi and Middle Eastern Courts.
11. Archaeology and tooth decay.
12. For Christians allergic to, uhm, Christian tradition. Why invent “31” days?
13. So, why complain about gay marriage, marriage is already broken?
14. Well, one “time to stop correcting” it is when “it” is grammatically correct.
15. For the Palin fans.
16. Publish or perish, or perish the thought?

G’day.

1. Shakespeare.
2. A book for your Lenten journey.
3. So the latest Obamacare lockstep talking point is “where are the people badly harmed if it is o bad” (which seems to me a really really low bar to set). Well, they asked.
4. Information and state vs people.
5. Afghanistan. I think multicultural “Star-Trek” thinking is what is (was) hurting us most in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were too afraid to be American’s and walk in and ask what American’s usually ask, how can we make a buck here (and in exchange you make a buck too). We should be going in like Poul Anderson’s Falkayn or Van Rijn, not like Picard.
6. Gay activists remark on the Collins/Sam coming “out” and that is on side of the coin. What is missed by all of these remarks is the other side. How Collins and Sam are barely-in-the-game (Collins a 12th man and Sam a late round draft possibility) by their “brave” action getting national attention and SI covers. How brave is it to do something which yields fame and fortune?
7. So, much has been made of the Thomas/Tobin not talking during oral argument things, e.g., here. Here is from an observer post-remarks. It’s interesting that the negative remarks by Tobin get lots of talk and coverage, but the more damning negative remarks of racism and the North-East elites by Justice Thomas get so little. Could he liberal east coasters be in denial about their own racism?
8. How not to think about stand your ground.
9. Oooh, hate crime?
10. Hypocrisy, for those who are confused on what that term means.
11. Mr Walker, so liberal attention is making me like him more. Is that their intent I wonder?
12. And no, brother-sister normally means they share parents. If you share one parent, there is a different word for that. I’ll bet you knew that already though.
13. Goverment unfairness.
14. Truth and advertising.

Well, now I’m in South East California (Visalia).

1. When I saw this, a question occurred to me. If it is (allegedly) illegal to refuse a same sex couple on top of a cake if you run a cake shop. Can you refuse to put a stripper pole on a wedding cake? If you can, … then I’m afraid I don’t see the reasoning behind the first being illegal. If you can’t, that’s also wrong it seems to me.
2. Tactics and Ukrainian resistance.
3. Alas, more politicians in the beltway don’t do this.
4. Wisconsin liberals show their liberal colors.
5. Conservative vs liberal notions of diversity.
6. In answer to the question, no it doesn’t insult the child or the mother, it indicates the speaker is either misogynistic moron or is trying to shock the listener with the how the pro-abortion crowd sees things.
7. Just remember, an elephant is just a mouse that the government spec’ed and built.
8. Of sport and danger.
9. Yes, it might be best, but the FDA has no mechanism for approving a treatment like that.
10. Punny.
11. McCain puts his mark on where Obama stands in the stupid vs evil choice. Liberal outraged that McCain called Obama stupid, apparently they prefer willful evil.
12. Mr Holder has apparently gone on record telling prosecutors to stop prosecuting gun laws like background checks and what types of gun are allowed and how/when you can carry, oh wait … it was a different law. If you’re a liberal cheering his “not stopping SSM in states where it is not legal” … how would you feel if it was about not holding to your states gun laws?
13. Yet another racist liberal.
14. Progress.

Moving the week right along. With Links!

1. From where I come from, “black bodies” brings to mind not racial politics but Planck’s constant and black body radiation. ‘Tis a better place I deem.
2. Death comes to all men.
3. Law and international relations, part one and two. In which it is admitted that all attacks on civilian objects not in time of war is an international war crime. Drone fans take note.
4. Mr Kerry is anti-science.
5. Wolves and their large scale construction projects.
6. Oh, that’s going to play well with the grandchildren.
7. A well played reverse fisking.
8. The intrinsic problem with the “GOP war on women” tactic. ‘Tis feminists and the pro-abortion left which war on women.
9. Apparently in outer space mass is not conserved. Who knew? Perhaps however there is another hypothesis.
10. Tourism and the Black Sea.
11. Curling participation apparently involves more than beer.
12. Cinema. If the Ark has a rudder, the Noah being portrayed is Gilgamesh with a pseudonym.

And so it goes (as they say … whomever constitutes “they” is not something I understand).

1. So, you want to commit horrible crimes?
2. Playdough law.
3. Cui bono. I’m still confused on who benefits from this law.
4. Re-design .. the axle?
5. Say it ain’t so Joe, err, James. (but note … new blog)
6. The hair makes the man, holds for other species.
7. Snerk.
8. A wordy math proof.
9. Oh, joy.
10. Gosh, I haven’t heard the President using the bully pulpit to denounce this. I’m thinking I didn’t miss it.
11. That’s really cool.
12. This may be a little offensive (which is kinda the point) but it does make good point about PC speech.
13. Going off the deep end (in two ways) … the writer finds someone who went off the rails … and the does so himself. Seriously, when you write “is now how quickly adults are willing to shoot teenagers” … re-read that. Then … count the number of adults in this country. Count how many of those adults actually “quickly shoot teenagers”.  How many is that? Then make your decision, write stupid things or shut up. Alas …..
14. Putting the IRS in its place.
15. How the beltway will doom us all with its good intentions.

So. More snow was apparently what someone influential in the Mid-West ordered. And we got it.

1. Exploiting God and other notions.
2. Speaking of snow and ice.
3. Actually, untrue. Chicago’s “paper of Record” page 2 columnist (Kass) had a page 2 column at the beginning of the Olympics in which he went to the Stalin residence. Well, let me correct that, he didn’t ignore it, but he also noticed that the Olympics and the rest of the crowds were mostly ignoring the site noted.
4. Yikes.
5. The world’s ugliest equation on record.
6. 10 bullet points on Orthodoxy for Western protestants.
7. Reverse colonization.
8. How to watch those Olympics.
9. Speaking of the Olympics and those graceful ice artists.
10. Losing or gaining freedoms and pedagogy.
11. The only way to construe this statement as reasonable, is to be clever about what you mean by “largest”. He must mean by volume, not be any count of deaths or damages.
12. A dangerous marine noted.
13. What science has to say to the feminist.
14. Yah, yah. Valentines day was last week, but heh.