Well, we made it home Saturday. Then it snowed. Then it got cold. The diesel didn’t start when we got home (not because of any diesel fuel issue but because of a dead battery). Since it was snowing … and today it was -20 F we didn’t trickle charge it yet. We’re going to charge it tomorrow and then try starting it Wednesday when the temps are supposed to get north of 10.  We’ve discovered some things about packed snow, ice, and salt.  When temps are below -15 salt doesn’t do squat. Snow melted/softened by salt which then is cooled below 10 or 15 below is hard as a rock. Squeeky snow (which is snow below 0) is very slippery on the roads. The only solution is to go slow … and finally, I live on a road which is on about a 15% grade. You can’t drive up it for the last few days. You can only go down. If your speed gets above about 5mph … you’re out of control and won’t be able to stop without pinwheeling a it. Creeping is only way.

A reminder, the difference between 60 and 20 is the same as the difference between 20 and -20. Think of what you wear at 60 compared to 20. Stay warm out there if you’re out and about in this arctic blast.

OK.

1. An economics question (dismal science indeed).
2. Bike meets phone.
3. Growing up is hard to do … apparently.
4. An amazingly bad analogy.
5. The right corrects the right regarding Obamacare.
6. Gains given up. Regrets? Or not?
7. I haven’t read the paper yet, but I suspect there’s a catch.
8. Misunderstanding Plato noted.
9. Guns are one thing, perhaps we need less emphasis on gun control and more on intelligence minimums for politicians.
10. Rules like this have completely eliminted gun violence in Chicago, oh, wait.
11. Actual science imitates 1970s Michael Moorcock  science fiction. His character Jerry Cornelius was big on optical stimulation for various effects.
12. If something can’t continue, it won’t.
13. Look what a little confirmation bias can get you.
14. Relationship advice.

Well, after a good almost full day of skiing … my injured knee stiffened. Kids are having a blast which is the important thing.

1. Obamacare wins an award.
2. And it losing (apparently) the hard left.
3. Bio oil from a different source.
4. Hmmm.
5. Examining the lack-of-logic behind  the thoughts of those desiring to ban guns.
6. A case for which shooting drones (as suggested by that Colorado town) makes perfect sense.
7. Seems to me, when you discuss other’s sins … you should remember 1 Timothy 1:15.
8. He’s not saying that … he’s saying higher taxes lead to greater economic growth. That’s not right, but that’s what he thinks.
9. China, children, and economics.
10. Climate models.
11. Star Trek mocked.

Have fun with those resolutions. (Which are so often summed up via Spike Lee’s enjoiner “Do the Right Thing”).

1. Well, in January, it seems I’ll be following the rich and famous (that is to say having a my colon scoped). My results will not likely reported by ABC News.
2. Without cause. Oh, goody.
3. Good news presented as bad.
4. On the hand, perhaps “if true” needs to be appended to the above.
5. Father Time is a T. Rex.
6. Who is surprised?
7. What a perfect landing looks like.
8. I’d share some of the other links, but my guess none of my readers would be interested in things like this.

Posting in general seems to have slowed. Have a good New Years day!

Links?

1. Hypocrite of the year award in the field of privacy law sense … voting and nominees.
2. Resolutions and advice.
3. World currency. Which brings to mind the classic Rocky and Bullwinkle series  of cartoons in which the world economic leaders despairing of a basis for currency settle on “box tops”, which a particular moose in the Dakotas has an abundance.
4. Lassiz-Faire defended.
5. A book reviewed.
6. For the Palin fans.
7. Mr Gandleman, showing how to jump to the wrong conclusion. This is evidence primarily of the increasing failure of scientific credibility. Exhibit A, elsewhere “climate change, formerly global warming, formerly global cooling” is another.
8. Another NSA whistleblower.
9. On crossing the aisle.
10. Affluence.
11. And … a flash mob.

Yo. Links?

1. A book noted, still in my inbox.
2. Some lessons forgotten in peacetime.
3. Some science and short animations.
4. Tax money wasted.
5. An Evangelical and the East.
6. As a Rightie who “supports” him (in the sense of don’t fire/suspend), that one supports the right of a man to say a thing doesn’t (oddly enough) mean you support what he says. That seems to be lost on the linked blogger.
7. Some income inequality for discussion.
8. Missing a major point, that is, the reason that civilians are being targeted it because the rebels dress like and hide among the same. War crimes beget the same, but the original crime it seems can be laid at the feet of rebels.
9. Remember this.
10. A meaningless statement by the Democrat organ of record noted.
11. An elephant does the high hurdles. There’s a lesson here on government eptitude.
12. After all, the more time a doctor spends doing paperwork/data entry the better off we’ll all be, according ACA supporters is yet another one of their non-economic economic claims. Kinda like taxes on new medical equipment development will spur the same.

Well, we made it to the East coast, i.e., Jersey. Today we were doing a college tour for my youngest.

1. I don’t get cable, but apparently there is a “reality” show about Ducks … (two remarks on that here and here). Seems to me the situation is basically as follows,  the left purports to want to enter into “conversations about race/gender/marriage”, but they really don’t. If you really want to “have a conversation” when the other side speaks their mind, you reply, you engage in conversation, you …, uhm, talk. But no. What the left does is try to shut you down and fire you. That’s not engaging in conversation, that’s naked coercion. Persuasion by force and coercion (a) doesn’t work and (b) is highly unethical. So in the absence of people like Mr Schraub and the left leading (or at least entering) the hew and cry to reverse the suspension, those on the left are left with that unfortunate choice of asking themselves, “am I stupid or evil.” (the assumption here being that attempts at persuasion by coercion is evil). The first link makes an interesting point, you can’t refuse to sell a cake based on your beliefs, but you can be fired saying what you believe, hmm.
2. Faith and commerce.
3. Cinema.
4. A really bad whoops moment noted.
5. Theotokos and Nativity.
6. Situation and being awake.
7. Obesity. I’ve seem some remarks about obesity and whether or not it should be treated as a disease and why we so often blame the obese for their condition. I think the salient insight on why we tend to blame the obese for their condition in the US is that those of us who are not oveweight realize how easy it would be to eat to much and not exercise. The non-obese have to work at it to stay thin, their feeling is that those who are not thin just didn’t do their due diligence and got where they were.
8. What the administration is setting aside.
9. A book noted.
10. Of war and human nature.

Tomorrow, train ride to East coast begins. In ze meantime … links?

1. Trickery of the shoe varietal.
2. From the same source, of memory, loss, and recovery.
3. We can thank the White House for this Christmas gift.
4. If true, amazingly stupid.
5. Selfie … pretty close to selfish.
6. On those manmade gasses and their effects.
7. Fundamentalist Islam and the UK.
8. Well, at least they can claim a better rollout than the US, that it didn’t cost $1 billion, and took less than 6 years to develop.

So, recently in my attempt to back in shape, I’m trying swimming, which is new to me. I’m really (repeat) really slow (to put it pointedly, there are pool meet records posted on the wall, I can’t beat the times posted by “under 8 y/o girls” yet) … and I can’t swim very far before being winded. But I’m improving. I think I need to grow lats before the slow thing can be really solved.

1. Not liking the Obamacare thing, the uninsured.
2. Vulnerable?
3. Yes, but to be honest, you have to give the Admin a bit of a break there. Those other Presidents didn’t have their projects done by no-bid contracts with their buddies company.
4. The President’s commission reviewed the NSA procedures and made recommendations .. and he spoke as well. Remarks on that here, here and here.
5. Ohio moves against homeschooling.
6. Of course you can talk about it (see liberals think if you can’t talk about it, then it is evidence of bigotry).
7. In which “a great idea” means take a bad thing and make it even worse.
8. Make sure you are not drinking anything near a keyboard when reading this headline.
9. Apparently athletic ability no longer a criteria in politically correct land.  After all, we wouldn’t want to judge people on ability or character …. just the color of their skin or the group to which they adhere.
10. But I guess once you truly embrace the stupid you can’t stop.

This issue has been in the news before, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen an opinion from this high up in the Catholic church.

To deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians who are Catholic, such as Secretary of State John Kerry, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “makes perfect sense” because it is a discipline that goes back to St. Paul, “the very first years of the Church,” said Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former archbishop of St. Louis and now the chief justice at the Vatican’s highest court.

In an interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on Dec. 13, Cardinal Burke explained that it is necessary to protect the Sacrament, the Communion wafer offered at Masses, from “being profaned, being violated by someone receiving unworthily,” someone “who knows that he or she is unworthy and yet presumes to come forward and to take the Holy Eucharist.”

For our Catholic readers, what’s your take on this?

So, I’m figuring out my schedule as I’m kinda off this week.

1. So, more “scientific discoveries” of the restating the obvious sort, this time from economics. The old folk saying “40 below keeps the riff raff out” from North Dakota comes to mind.
2. Again, science restating the obvious. To get good at anything takes lots of practice. To get world-class good at something takes that plus lots of talent. Duh.
3. Staking claims and property rights … on the moon.
4. Woops.
5.  A commercial noted.
6. The global warming, err, climate change crowd are probably crowing about this (to which a reprise of their own comments on cold weather is in order) … but it’s cool anyhow.
7. To whit.
8. “Judge Leon” three posts, here, here and here. Unfortunately for me, the phrase “Judge Leon” brings this for me.
9. Speaking of names and associations. Jack Bauer is in the news.
10. You can keep your doctor, liberal New Yorker impact.
11. Pre-game go go go (and a counter opinion). Upshot, consistency won out.
12. You can take the gymnast out of the gym, but … you can’t take the gym out of the gymnast.
13. Art and the ant.
14. Of church and state.

Good news on the religious liberty front. Gabriel Malor writing at Ace of Spades give a great rundown of the main points of the district court judge’s ruling with regards to forcing the Catholic Archdiocese of New York to cover, or exempt themselves, from the ObamaCare™ requirement that they cover contraception or abortion. In a snark-less post, it’s just a matter-of-fact examination of the ruling, and why this may have a very tough road to the Supreme Court, assuming it’s appealed that far.

Some highlights (but, as they say, read the whole thing):

This is the first litigation to result in a final injunction against the contraception mandate for religious non-profit organizations that come within the Obama Administration’s purported exemption to the mandate.The 7th, 10th, and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals have all found the mandate to be an unacceptable burden on the free exercise of religion for for-profit businesses that don’t come under the exemption. This case is important, though, because it recognizes that even the act of having to claim the exemption is an unacceptable burden on religion.

…

Very late in this case, the government realized that, although the Archdiocese and its constituent organizations are covered by the mandate, the regulations might not actually force a third party they designate to provide the objectionable contraception coverage. The judge was not amused:

…

The Obama administration has handed out so many exceptions to the law, it can no longer claim the law serves a compelling purpose.

…

The administration, as it has frequently done with respect to disobeying laws it does not like, argued that it had to enforce the contraception mandate in such an infringing manner because it could not do it any other way. The district court pointed out the obvious flaw in this line of thinking:

A very interesting and damaging ruling.

Now that same-sex marriage has been accepted by some states, it’s no longer a draw for the evening news, so ABC News in America has decided to move on to the next big thing; open marriage. These are marriages where fidelity is more of a suggestion than anything else. It’s not polygamy, which at least formally acknowledges, in one manner or another, a lasting relationship with more than one spouse. Instead, open marriage, or polyamory, means two people are legally married while continuing to see other people.

So ABC News decided to present a generally positive quote-unquote “news” piece about those for whom commitment is something only for mentally disturbed people. The most critical thing said in the whole segment was that reporter Nick Watt thought it just wasn’t his thing, and that his wife wouldn’t like it. But the rest of the segment, including questions to a psychologist, was generally positive. Not a hint of an opposing viewpoint.

This is what passes for “news” in the 21^st century; one-sided advocacy journalism. Even if Watt isn’t personally in favor of it, showing one side only, on a controversial topic, on a news show, is advocacy.

Do other news organizations do it? Yes, on both sides of the aisle. But while Fox News and the Wall Street Journal get lambasted anytime they don’t play it down the middle, so many liberal news watchers have such a blind spot when something like this airs. Conservative media bias is outrageous. Liberal media bias is…hey look, a unicorn!

The other issue, of course, is that those who said that same-sex marriage would lead to a slippery slope have been, yet again, proved absolutely on target. We aren’t falling for it, but the news media is pushing.

“More guns, more violence”, so goes the mantra that, apparently, many liberal politicians and their voters keep chanting. In one way, it sort of makes sense, if you think about it without considering anything else other than the number of guns.

However, there were some maps made by the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime that tend to set this mantra on its ear. Remember, now; this is data from the UN, not some conservative think tank.

The map shows that where gun ownership is higher, the number of homicides is, generally speaking, lower. In most cases, where the country is orange or red on the gun ownership map – the high end of the scale – they’re green on the homicides map, meaning the low end. Places like the US, which no one would deny is awash in guns, to those places in Europe where you can still get them, more guns mean fewer homicides. And all these values are population based; per capita.

And to just reinforce the point, when the country is green on the gun map – where it’s difficult to get guns – you’re extremely likely to see red on the homicide map; one might say figuratively and literally. Fewer guns in Central and South America, Africa and Russia don’t translate into rainbows and unicorns, unfortunately.

It’s time to stop chanting and take an honest look at the facts. The unicorns might just be grazing in another field entirely.

President Obama gave something of an apology in November for his promise that if you liked your health care plan or doctor, you could keep them, period. Turns out what he meant was that if he liked them, you could keep them. And he turned out to be very difficult to please.

But he’s not the only one who was going around making that promise. Here’s a link for the occasions where these Senators went and did likewise.

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA)
SEN. KAY HAGAN (D-NC)
SEN. MARK BEGICH (D-AK)
SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO)
SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA)
SEN. TOM HARKIN (D-IA)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY)
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL)
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV)
SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT)

Baucus actually wrote most of the bill that eventually became ObamaCare, and was a major player in health care policy for decades before, so his transgression is especially grievous. They were fed a line, which a few of them at least should have known to be false, and parroted it to the people.

The American people were not promised a website; they were promised that they could keep their plan and doctor. Will these Democrats pay a price for this? Will saying something so transparently false hurt them at the ballot box? Do Democratic voters really want people who lie this brazenly, or are just tools for those that do, representing them? Will they vote them out? We’ll see, but hold not thy breath.