1. The other fine line, between funny and stupid.
2. On healthcare, dissing both sides and even providing a suggested alternative. I’d go futher and suggest all our entitlements should be strictly means tested.
3. The reprise of the cursed with a child meme.
4. Bland understatement of the day, “perverse incentives” indeed.
5. The result of hope and change … and waking up.
6. Girls and books.
7. The brewery that brought us quantum mechanics not seen in a good light (and yes, the Carlsberg brewery contributed to funding the Copenhagen institute where Niels Bohr and many others did a lot of the seminal work to develop quantum mechanics).
8. Big bank profits noted.
9. On porn.
10. You’d think Ms Sotomayor would have her facts straight on matters involving the recent high court.
11. Praise for Ms Palin.
12. Another elephant.
13. A debate which reveals as so often is the case more about the debaters than the topic under discussion.
14. This observation is not unrelated.
15. Was that song right?
16. On community.

• Well, I got a good 3 hours of LSD in today. Btw, LSD in distance sports means Long Steady Distance not the other thing, in zone 2 mostly with a few zone 4/5 kicks on hills for fun. That felt really good. Cloudy skies medium wind and lower to mid 80s. Nice. Hopefully I’ll be able to repeat that Thursday.
• Well, during the ride I was thinking I’d try to work on thoughts for an essay. But … I’ve got reading to do and time is short, so it’s going to be brief and likely a bit scattered [hah! like that’s different than usual?]

When I wrote an essay on one reason “why I’m conservative” it engendered an oddly heated response. I was considering the opposite, “why I’m not a liberal” and one reason was that I see the elephant in the room they seem to miss. Some examples:

• A year or two ago, Mr Schraub suggested some books for me to read. One of these was called Covering, which was an narrative account by a gay lawyer of the “covering” up of a persons identity to fit in the job he of his choice and how hard that was. Yet, the elephant he missed was the reverse effect Badging. He had to “cover” to hide personality traits and lifestyle “badges” that were not accepted in his chosen workplace. Yet badging is done and in fact sought out by everyone. As I have noted before, cyclists shave their legs as a “badge” demonstrating to those in the know that they belong to that group. Yes, professional cyclists have practical reasons to shave their legs, but the rest of us amateur cyclists do so as well even in the absence of those reasons … to badge. Covering in essence is a violation of badging. It is camouflage, i.e., deception … which is why society reacts poorly to it. But the point here is not about the details of badging vs covering. It is that liberal/progressives focus on the element that they are sensitive to, and ignore the larger elephant, i.e., reason for the practice.
• Take marriage. Progressives are up in arms about the equality and the rights for gays to marry. When last discussing this, I ran some numbers for the village in which I reside, Lemont.  Lemont  has a population of just under 16k. My rough calculation yielded that for towns in general in the states about 15 gay couples would like to marry in this town (total not per year). Furthermore the population in Lemont contains a good proportion of Hispanic and Eastern European immigrants. It is likely that demographic would depress this number by a significant fraction, so my guess would be that the real number would be around 4-6 couples. Yet the elephant is missed. This is one of the big hot topic family issues for progressives. Yet, if you listed and polled and did a real study of problems families and couples face in Lemont. Then order them by the numbers where do you think by the numbers that SSM would appear? I’m guessing it wouldn’t show in the top 100. Yet this is the one that gets airtime. Now I can understand when actual gay bloggers and writers who wish to get married discuss this. I don’t get it when the rest do. There’s something else going on here. Why are they ignoring the elephant?

Now it’s likely that a progressive might be able to make the same accusation turned around at me, a conservative. Claiming on some other issue I’m ignoring the big picture for a seemingly insignificant detail. So, is this a generic feature of our divide? Or is it a right looking left one?

I was driving through West Virginia and Kentucky last weekend and saw a number of signs advertising that some particular road improvement project was being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act otherwise known as the “stimulus plan” or by its more derisive name Porkulus.

About half the projects I saw on the road appeared to have already been completed. The other half were in various states of progress.

But I couldn’t help wonder about the money spent on the signs. Turns out I’m not the only one. Frankly, I can’t see why the money was spent on the signs. But then again, this is the federal government and, as usual, nothing they do makes sense.

Perhaps the better thing to have done was to forgo buying the signs and spend more money fixing the roads.

I’m just saying…..

Yesterday, Senator Orrin Hatch, who has voted on 11 Supreme Court nominees, had very good opening remarks in the Sotomayor confirmation hearing.  His whole speech is worth reading (or watching, if you prefer), but I’d like to highlight a section where he notes that Senator Obama seemed to have a different standard for judicial nominees than he has today.  Senator Hatch pointed this out.

I have also found guidance from what may seem to some as an unusual source. On June 8, 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama explained his opposition to the appeals court nomination of Janice Rogers Brown, an African-American woman with a truly compelling life story who then served as a Justice on the California Supreme Court. Senator Obama made three arguments that I find relevant today.

First, he argued that the test of a qualified judicial nominee is whether she can set aside her personal views and, as he put it, “decide each case on the facts and the merits alone….That is what our Founders intended….Judicial decisions ultimately have to be based on evidence and on facts. They have to be based on precedent and on law.”

Second, Senator Obama extensively reviewed Justice Brown’s speeches off the court for clues about what he called her “overarching judicial philosophy.” There is even more reason to do so today. This is, after all, a nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Judge Sotomayor, if confirmed, will help change the very precedents that today bind her as a U.S. Circuit Judge. In other words, the judicial position to which she has been nominated is quite different than the judicial position she now occupies.

This makes evidence, outside of her appeals court decisions, regarding her approach to judging more, not less, important. Judge Sotomayor has obviously thought, spoken, and written much on these issues and I think we show respect to her in taking that entire record seriously.

Third, Senator Obama said that while a nominee’s race, gender, and life story are important, they cannot distract from the fundamental focus on the kind of judge she will be. He said then, as I have said today, that we should all be grateful for the opportunity that our liberty affords for Americans of different backgrounds.

We should applaud Judge Sotomayor’s achievements and service to her community, her profession, and her country. Yet Senator Obama called it “offensive and cynical” to suggest that a nominee’s race or gender can give her a pass for her substantive views. He proved it by voting twice to filibuster Judge Janice Rogers Brown’s nomination, and then by voting against her confirmation. I share his hope that we have arrived at a point in our country’s history where individuals can be examined and even criticized for their views, no matter what their race or gender. If those standards were appropriate when Senator Obama opposed Republican nominees, they should be appropriate now that President Obama is choosing his own nominees.

But today, President Obama says that personal empathy is an essential ingredient in judicial decisions. Today, we are urged to ignore Judge Sotomayor’s speeches altogether and focus only on her judicial decisions. I do not believe that we should do that.

Indeed, Sen. Hatch continues on to note other double standards that Senator Obama applied, based, one can only imagine, solely on the way the judge is expected to rule on particular cases.  Democrats have politicized this process (just ask Robert Bork or Clarence Thomas), but Republicans, like Senator Lindsey Graham, have been much more fair (just ask Ruth Ginsberg), and indeed, as he said, "Now, unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed." 

When George W. Bush was elected, Republicans defended his policy decisions, in part, with the phrase, "elections mean things".  If the country votes in a President, they vote in his policies and, if the occasion presents itself, Supreme Court nominees.  And so Graham also said, "But President Obama won the election and I will respect that."  Not as a rubber stamp, but the President does get the benefit of the doubt.  Republicans are being consistent in this, and in doing so are trying to hold back or reverse the politicization of the process that Democrats have pushed.

While watching Fox News cover the hearings, as each speaker began their remarks, you saw some information about them; personal information (age, service in politics, etc.), what they’ve said about Sotomayor, and how they voted in past Supreme Court nominees.  It was interesting to see how many Republicans voted for every nominee they ever saw, including Hatch’s 11 Yes votes, but how so many Democrats haven’t yet voted Yes.  In confirming Sotomayor, the Republicans will once again lead by example, hoping perhaps that the Democrats will see this and act likewise when the situation is reversed.  History does not seem to indicate that this will happen, but you can always hope.

1. Criticism of Mr Obama from Israel.
2. Inconsistency on Mr Obama’s part regarding democracy.
3. Mainstream press marginalizes itself, and the case of Ms Palin is demonstrative.
4. The monastic tradition.
5. Redefining the renewable car.
6. Who’s “betting” against him? Now working against him, that’s another story.
7. And here’s a reason why it’s important to work against him.
8. Ethics of empathy as will to power.
9. Learning from literature, duh. If you learn nothing from, say, A day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch or Brave New World or The Brothers Karamazov or …. (the list goes on) you can’t learn anything.
10. The latest news from David Wayne and his cancer.
11. The left, still trying to keep life hard for the poor.
12. Well, now that the employment is completely recovered it can be kicked around again.
13. The risings costs of veterinary costs matching (human) healthcare is a meme being kicked around. Both sides try to swing this in their favor, when really it’s just a sign of the fact that both are skilled labor intensive endeavours.
14. GI Joe.
15. Memory Eternal.
16. Of shop class.
17. Probably.

TigerHawk has an eye-opening blog post about how much of the economy the Obama administration wants to restructure. 

Perhaps a number will help: 35%. That is the aggregate percentage of United States GDP produced by the three industries that the Democrats hope to restructure from the top down: Health care (17% of GDP), energy (9.8% of GDP), and financial services (8% of GDP). Think about that.

And it has to be done now, now, now!  Don’t read the bills, and don’t let the public scrutinize them; just vote on them!

And if you act now, we’ll throw in the automotive sector (4% of GDP)!  (Sorry, channeling Billy Mays for a second there.)

So then, if the government gets to get its hands into more than 1/3rd of the economy, with a controlling interest never before given to it, would you still call that capitalism? 

1. If you look past irrelevant political polemics … the puzzle is interesting.
2. Russia and China.
3. A satirical tale.
4. Your government and its expenditures.
5. Black or not was likely less relevant than the common shared Semitic heritage.
6. Of science and message.
7. Why Biden is (still) a bad choice for Iraq oversight. Although it becomes more and more clear that Biden is just plain a bad choice for basically everything.
8. Obama’s NIH choice and ID.
9. Watching Obmacare’s hope/change morph into same-old/same-old but just bigger and more repellent.
10. Drones are interesting because they are less expensive … and some consequences.
11. Veils.
12. The motive behind capitalism.
13. A map of death and despair.
14. Russalka … a short film (and I might note also a Dvorak opera).
15. A likely subtext of why the left is so enamoured of public healthcare options (but not one they want on the front burner).
16. Left and right … blogging and linking.
17. A libertarian fisks the President.
18. On miracles and creation … for myself I think an awful lot of real miracles are very prosaic.

It is often the case that long standing beliefs about historical trends are found to be in error. This happens so often that one might argue that it the extreme reverse of this is actually true. That the long standing beliefs about historical events and motivations have it exactly wrong. For example, the BEF approach to trench warfare in WWI was in fact innovative, tactically responsive, and did in fact learn from their mistakes … the reverse of the common notion.

The popular impression of that Christians (and others) have about the growth of Christianity in the first 3 centuries hinges on martyrdom. It is often quoted and said that oppression and violence against a group of that sort causes it to spread and strengthen. However, in class this weekend, I learned that this impression on the growth of Christianity in the first few centuries and the example of the martyrs being a primary inspiration for the movement is wrong.

So the, what did drive Christian growth? Apparently, it was the widows and orphans that were the key. In the first few centuries of the Roman empire and the ancient world in general infanticide was common and the lot a widow was very very hard. It was common for a family that had an infant abandon it on the side of the road. They might hope that slavers might pick it up (and it should be noted the lot of slaves was nowhere near as bad as slavery in the Americas which in turn is nowhere nearly as bad as it is in today in the modern era. Slaves likely had as much or more upward mobility than a wage labourer.) Christians began the practice of collecting these infants and either adopting them or bringing them to orphanages which they established. Who ran these orphanages? Likely it was run by monks and widows (living now in convents) … supported through contributions of Christian parishes and wealthy Christians. It was this example and practice and not the example of martyrs which inspired many to consider and join the Christian faith.

This means that Christian charity not Christian heroism (martyrdom) was a more important driver of Christian expansion in the time of persecution. There are two points to draw from this. First this is not meant to deny the important example of those martyrs of the first centuries or even of today. Second, that martyrdom while convincing others of the depth and solidity of the faith was not (and likely remains not) an important evangelical technique but instead that charity was and still remains the key.

This is the version of an article for our parish newsletter on faith and science. The longer version is posted here.  It is my hope that this version is accessible to a general audience (the longer version I’ve been told is not so easy to read, but I still think with some effort can be read by any interested reader).

Science and religion

Because the terms science and religion are enormously broad topics they need to be restricted. Science will refer to physics. Religion will mean Christian interaction with that science.

Natural science (physics) has gone through three major stages. These stages will be discussed in turn and the relationship with religion examined below.

Stage 1: Geometry

From the time of the Greek golden age through the 16th century the understanding of nature was based on pure geometry. Study of Euclid was crucial because geometry was seen as the key principle for understanding nature. Aristotelian cosmology and the Pythagorean movement are examples of this view of nature.

In the second through fifth centuries orthodox Christian theology arrived at a basic understanding of the relationships between God, man, and the world which remain dominant with minor variations to this day. Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa both often explicitly tied theology with philosophy (and natural philosophy or physics). One important 2^nd century philosopher and contemporary of Origen was Plotinus. That Origen and Plotinus each attended the others talks and interacted frequently is exemplary of the relationship between science and religion at that time.

Stage 2: An Analytic View

Between the time of Galileo and Newton the conception of nature shifted. The understanding of natural laws changed to a description of motions and interactions of objects given by formula, e.g., Newton’s three laws of motion. Descartes laid essential foundations of algebra to describe and prove geometrical concepts. Ways of thinking moved from the constructive geometric view to an analytic one. Later mathematical developments made the analytical approach immensely successful.

In this time period Christian theology (in the West) also underwent a revolution. The theological turmoil of Reformation and counter-Reformation occurred. This changed what Christianity meant for the West. Too, the relationship between natural philosophy and theological thought changed. Science and religion parted ways. The Origen/Plotinus relationship disappeared. While a few priests (e.g., Mendeleev and Priestly) contributed to science, religion’s interactions with science became rare. Some theology would come into direct conflict with modern scientific views, e.g., evolution vs literal creation accounts.

Stage 3: Symmetry.

In the early 20^th century mathematical developments began another shift in our understanding of how the universe is constructed. The mathematical inventive work of Emmy Noether, Hamilton, and Riemann made this shift possible. Einstein, Kaluza, and Klein first used this new math, specifically a geometrical property known as symmetry, to provide the conceptual framework of physics. In 1954, Yang and Mills defined the Standard Model based on these ideas. The Standard Model is the current best model of the particles and forces found in nature. Geometry (as symmetry) has returned and again today drives our understanding of nature.

The separation between science and religion which developed since the 20^th century has not been resolved. With a few exceptions, like Father John Polkinghorne, who was an important theoretical physicist and is presently an Anglican theologian, little theological thought is being put into trying to reunite and reconcile science and religion.

Natural science over the past 3000 years has gone the distance, from a geometrically motivated view of the universe it traversed through an analytic approach and subsequently returned to a geometrically motivated view. In the first period there was no tension between theology and science. During the second, a separation occurred which continues today.

The complexity and scope of what physics does understand regarding the large and small scale structure of space-time and the natural world is far greater than in the 3^rd century. Yet, a theology asserting where God stands in relationship to man and His universe should be developed which is in accord with modern physics. This should be an active and viable task for theology today.

John Stossel has a nice takedown of your most recent article on universal health care.  No, it’s not better in France, and it’s going to cost way more than any estimate.

It’s short, so you can indeed Read the Whole Thing(tm).

1. Le tour, stage 6.
2. Manners are important, perhaps however that overstates the case.
3. Of private virtue and libertarian ideas of government.
4. Someone with a little more than casual information about Ms Palin talks.
5. Ms Pelsoi gets one right … like a stopped clock?
6. Being Christian in Iran. Or the UK?
7. In which I agree (with statement #1).
8. Of whom I am first, not hyperbole.
9. Well, the left in its heated overstatements on healthcare now finds breast cancer one of the %.001 extreme medical emergencies.
10. Praising Obama for getting something right.
11. More notes on Mr Obama getting the past wrong in Moscow.
12. Remembering a famous Serbian who came to America and changed the world.

It seems progressives have it ingrained that private healthcare insurance are not healthcare services or products that I’ve purchased. This is a lie. It is the essential lie that is wrecking the current debate on healthcare. From Tuesday’s comments here are to remarks to this assertion which I take as typical:

Actually you’ve ‘paid for’ a bet. You’ve betted that you will require certain expensive healthcare over the term of your policy. Your insurance company has bet that you will not. If it wins, they keep your premiums and make a profit. If you win, they pay for your healthcare.

and

As Boonton points out, you haven’t purchased healthcare per se, but healthcare coverage. And I’m not sure who “on the left” “forget” that.

Let me start with a little analogy.

Two men are neighbours. Their families both regularly have a Saturday evening barbecue at which sometimes they chat. One day they both start remarking on a very large boulder uphill of their properties. The way it is propped up it looks like it could hit one or the other of their houses. One of them suggests that every Saturday each one will put $20 a kitty. When (and if) erosion or other processes loosen the huge rock to crack into one of their houses … thy guy whose house is hit gets whatever was in the pot.

Imagine that rock was above a town … and the town agreed to a similar deal … and that contributions were fixed, contributors were voluntary, and that only contributors would be splitting the funds collected funds when the rock released. And that the funds getting large enough needed to hire an accountant to manage those funds … and that some rules needed to be established to apportion that sum in a equitable manner when rock caused damage to various houses in differing degrees. And voila … one has established an insurance company (not healthcare … but that is a distinction without difference).

This essentially the “bet” in the first quoted remark above or the “coverage” vs “product” in the second. What is the status of that money. When the person who’s house is struck has to pay for repairs … is that paid for with his money? It seems obvious that the answer to that is yes, he is paying with his money.

Healthcare coverage today is quite expensive. I don’t have the figures [note: I might ask at my employer for a rough estimate of what our companies healthcare costs per month run.] but I’m guessing offhand that $6k to $12k per year easily is being put to my healthcare insurance for my family of four. The first objection insists that this is a “bet” (which is an odd way to put actuarial calculations). Actuarial evolution is the means by which insurance companies make money. But the amount above the co-pay for medical services and medicines that are purchased on my families behalf is money from the “kitty” above. It is mine. It comes from my participation in the pool. The quantity that must be put in is related directly to mathematical statistical models of our population and our behaviour. Yet it is my money in exactly the same way that the money that money belonged the gentleman above with the damaged house. The movement from the two men to the town is pretty clear. When the money is spent is it still money belonging to and deriving directly from the people benefiting. That there is a “bet” involved is an unimportant detail. That this is “coverage” vs “payment” is a syntactic dodge.

Calling the health insurance that a person earns and receives as on of the means of  remuneration for services rendered to an employer not a thing for which he has bought and paid is rhetorical thievery. The left will tell you today that these actuarial services are stealing from you. They will also deny that the private insurance company benefits are your money. And furthermore, that replacing these with greater government efficiencies will save incredible amounts. One wonders at the naivete at that sort of thinking. Greater. Government. Efficiencies. From what planet do these people originate? Medicare is a public healthcare program. There are private companies that exist solely for the purpose of navigating the arcane and Kafkan intricacies of Medicare paperwork on your behalf. Yep. More efficient indeed. Savings indeed. Mr Obama is indeed a great politician, that is if the term ‘great’ is a measure of the size and frequency of the the lies you tell.

No, not that Jackson 5. The first 5 American servicemen and women named "Jackson" who died in Iraq. They won’t get media coverage or the attention of those following celebrities, but theirs was a sacrifice we should honor.

PowerLine has the details.

Regarding Gitmo detainees who may have been acquitted,

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration argues that the legal basis for indefinite detention of aliens it considers dangerous is separate from war-crimes prosecutions. Officials say that the laws of war allow indefinite detention to prevent aliens from committing warlike acts in future, while prosecution by military commission aims to punish them for war crimes committed in the past.

On national security, Obama has pretty much held the Bush line.  But hey, he gave great speeches about Change, so it’s OK.

1. On progressives and civil liberties … (blogger was down when I linked this but that should be temporary).
2. And the Keynsians are plugging for more and bigger stimuli. Reconsidering their hypothesis, is not an option apparently.
3. One bike in Le Tour … and a 40s style gal.
4. A judge and jury and healthcare.
5. I think he’s wrong too. You tell how much “more religious” a person is by how much of their time and self they devote to the same.
6. Obama, walking circles in Moscow … where Mr Obama rings the Quayle-o-meter … and not the usual  reception?
7. A call for “clear alternative visions”, something oddly enough the left never did during the Bush tenure.
8. Gay culture and Ms Palin.
9. Some history of usury.
10. Unfortunate slip of Mr Krugman’s.
11. What passes for standards in the beltway.
12. The fantastic in film for the remainder of 2009.
13. We can hope.