The release of yet more secret, unredacted, government documents, including cables with unverified information, by the WikiLeaks website is yet another blow to US diplomacy and intelligence.  It will cause allies to clam up and intelligence sources to possibly lose their lives as their aid is exposed.  Thanks for nothin’.

We are learning some things, however, about the world as it really is, which, in my estimation, buttress George W. Bush’s policies in the Middle East and elsewhere.  The TPM blog (not one I typically link to, mind you) has a list of their top 5 most shocking things in the leaks.

Among them is the fact that virtually every country in the Middle East wants us to solve the Iran nuclear issue for them.  They realize that sanctions and incentives "have no importance" (via translation).  Essentially, they are absolutely useless.  I’m wondering if liberals who seem to think sanctions are the universal panacea will rethink this course of action, at least with regards to Iran.  (Hold not thy breath.)

Also, North Korea is supplying Iran with long-range missiles that could hit Europe or deep into Russia.  Yeah, all this diplomacy with madmen is working wonders for the safety of the world, don’t you think?

But one of the biggest reveals is how the New York Times is treating this, vs. other leaks.  James Delingpole, writing for the London Telegraph, highlights two quotes from the NY Times:

“The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.” Andrew Revkin, Environment Editor, New York Times Nov 20, 2009.

“The articles published today and in coming days are based on thousands of United States embassy cables, the daily reports from the field intended for the eyes of senior policy makers in Washington. The New York Times and a number of publications in Europe were given access to the material several weeks ago and agreed to begin publication of articles based on the cables online on Sunday. The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match.” New York Times editorial 29/11/2010

The first was an explanation of why the Time wouldn’t publish private conversations revealing ClimateGate.  The second is the explanation of why the Time did publish private conversations in the WikiLeaks documents.  For those paying attention, yet another glaring example of bias; editorial decisions made based on the policy being exposed.

(More at Stop the ACLU.)

But the original leak is utterly irresponsible.  Why is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange still roaming around a free man?  (Or for that matter, the head of the NY Times?)

Good morning.

1. Science and religion in debate.
2. Acting in economic interest.
3. No going back, dude.
4. The EU and Ireland. Oh, and a book … I bought it.
5. Not unrelated to the above.
6. Winter, Nativity, and a song.
7. Eschaton predicted.
8. 50 Quotes.
9. Contraception and Catholicism, three posts. One. Two. Three.
10. Brrrriinnng.
11. A financial bubble noted.
12. Nork … here and here.
13. And … Obamacare.

Good morning.

1. Two disparate views of the terrorism threat.
2. A motor.
3. A philosophy joke. 
4. Looks like, but isn’t really.
5. A cartel. 
6. Not getting it. If you make choices for religious (or any other reason for that matter) those choices have consequences.
7. Insurance rates the the crash.
8. The euro jig.
9. Another discussion, science and religion.

A few weeks ago I offered some notions toward considering alternatives to the government structures which are now in place. Here are some more thoughts on this topic. These thoughts are meant to supply suggestions for the following two problems with the current system. First of all, there is a feeling of disconnect between the ordinary citizen and government. Our actions and intentions are not communicated merely by voting and other methods of getting our opinions heard. We rightly feel that there is little to no connection between us our connection and influence on government is basically nothing. This leads to people being disillusioned, to resent taxation, anger at government waste, spending, and allocations of funds. A second problem that exists is that governments while sufficient to handle 19th century complexities are less able to effectively deal with the information asymmetries built in to top/down hierarchical structures. Finally government agencies are a faction of government which has grown extensively in the past few decades and are extra-Constitutional. There are no checks and balances in place to regulate their expanse of powers. 

Facebook and other social networking sites give an example of how social networks can arise and sustain themselves. I haven’t spent much time on facebook but current political groups and PACs are using these media to organize and spread their message. This media fits well with the political environment. Why? It is because this sort of social network can effectively be used to connect people with ideas which they support. Furthermore this sort of network can connect the individual in a tighter fashion to the group. Ideas and messages from individuals are visible. The invisibility problem is not present in this sort of system. 

The missing step here is the institutionalization of such networks, the giving them teeth. Replace the congressional budgetary process with the network. In this suggestion government agencies would be required to form network, open up and sell the the public the necessity for their existence. Contributions (taxes) which go into a central budget pool would be replaced with personal contributions allocated to those agencies via network. This would force (many) of those agencies to open their process to the network in order to generate interest and participation (and therefore contributions) to effect their goals. 

To restate and make this more concrete. Government agencies would not get funding from Congressional allocation of Presidential budgets, but from individuals opting to contribute to that via network. Taxes (the amount contributed) may be set but on a regular basis the allocation of your taxes would be self-directed “friending” government agencies and individuals. There are at least two salutary effects from this arrangement. Agencies would in turn be need to open up and convince people that their work is worthy of said funds. At the same time, government agencies wishing to spend public funds would be forced to sell their ideas instead of putting their practices into action by fiat.

Happy Thanksgiving.

1. More talk about procedure and terror.
2. Why has this man not been defrocked?
3. If they called it stimulus the left of the aisle would be all behind it.
4. St. Catherine and Ms Harvey.
5. QE2 primer.
6. A tell.
7. Thanksgiving.
8. Here too.
9. Some very good Nork links located here. More here.
10. A girl going.
11. Mr Obama and boredom. As I’ve noted before, boredom is a flow not in the universe but the person who is bored. To be more specific, it’s a matter of a lack of maturity. 

Good morning.

1. Stalin and genocide.
2. Why monasticism?
3. North Korea.
4. Dancing with flaming balls of gas, here and here.
5. Tribalism and the green movement.
6. A conversation on Gitmo.
7. On death.
8. Not a fan of human exceptionalism … which is one of the causes of the mass tragedies of the 20th century (for which I refer to Ms Delsol with The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century).
9. Making a stand.
10. Mr Maxwell’s demon.
11. Microsoft developers had a phrase for this, “eating your own dog food”, a practice the beltway should take up, i.e., subject themselves to the same regulatory burdens they shovel on the rest of us. (link corrected)

Good morning.

1. Islam, violence, and education.
2. Monday SCOTUS links.
3. supercallifragiousexpialidoconstiutionalism.
4. Etymology of gerrymander.
5. Talking about Benedict and the condom kerfuffle.
6. Marble wonders.
7. Raising taxes and their effect on deficits.
8. Time spent.
9. Ms Levy.
10. For the Palin fans.
11. GM bailout.
12. Of government and market.
13. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the International courts.

Yes, I was on vacation all last week, cruising in the western Caribbean.  Not so much relaxing per se (the excursions kept us moving) but recharging and just plain fun (and educational, especially with regard to the Mayan ruins we visited). 

No phone (didn’t want to pay international rates), limited Internet (just enough to transmit daily e-mails with pictures to family), and just the wife and me.  So I didn’t know about, or care about, the events of the day enough to make any real comments today.  But I just wanted to explain the dearth of posts from me. 

Nothing personal folks, but I just wasn’t thinking about you.  🙂

Good morning.

1. A monastery and the Soviet era gulag.
2. US, China and currency manipulation.
3. TSA and following the money. 
4. Moral obligations in the midst of immoral behavior.
5. Myanmar.
6. Cinema anticipation.
7. Witness.
8. Links with a philosophical bent.
9. Falling asleep in the Lord with company.

My primary car that I drive (our family has two) is a 2000 Honda Insight which I purchased used a few years back. Mid summer after some heavy rainfall I drove through some deep water and tore a plastic panel off the underside of the car. Two months ago the “IMA” and “Check Engine” lights came on. IMA is the term for the Honda hybrid system, the acronym IMA means Integrated Motor Assist. Thus begins the battery saga.

So … I took the car to the Honda dealer with which I had previously been taking the car for checkups and tuneups. They informed me that the panel could be replaced but that three units related to the IMA system cause the IMA light to trigger. They said the MCM, BCM, and the big NiMH battery pack all needed replacing and that would come to about $6.8k. The two control modules would came to about $4.4 and $2.2k for the battery pack in the cost breakdown. I had them replace the panel and told them I’d “think about” the other repairs.  Read the rest of this entry

Good morning.

1. Free speech and the left, although generalizing the notions of idiots in the beltway to the rest of the populus is probably wrong … the majority would prefer to just silence FOX I’d think.
2. Voters intelligence. Too bad the beltway denizens are dumber. 
3. Divorce and habits of confrontation.
4. DREAM.
5. Waffling on the TSA scans.
6. Iowa, SSM and their high court.
7. For the Palin fans, a sympathetic NYTimes piece noted. Of the five points listed at the start, 2 and 5 will be disbelieved by the epistemically closed left.
8. A AGW quote/poll,  “For example, why don’t they appreciate that it’s irrelevant that “97%” of the grant parasites, cowards, and left-wing activists pretending to be scientists in various institutions with scientific names subscribe to the AGW crap?” Heh.
9. A strange road to charity.
10. My (admittedly outsiders) view of the sport of golf.
11. 12 on joy.
12. Rural China.
13. Seriously? The TSA considering offering search exceptions to those wearing burkas? 

Good morning.

1. A chicken egg question. (and for the original question, it seems clear genetically the answer must be egg). 
2. Of science and god.
3. An Orthodox Jewish convert noted.
4. Fer the Palin fans. The most attractive thing, alas(?), about a Palin candidacy is the fits it will incite on sectors of the left.
5. Global warming.
6. Simpson-Bowles discussed.
7. Blogging as an activity.
8. Some wonderful puns to enjoy.
9. The FDA puts its two cents in against Irish coffee. As an aside, Mr Hemmingway used to use the combination of alcohol, sugar, caffeine, and nicotine as a truth serum to bust writers bloc (Irish coffee and cigars). 
10. Hiring practices.
11. Bang bang.
12. Ban lawyers from battlefields.
13. A hero interviewed. So … how many people in your company would list her as a modern hero? How many kids today?
14. Academics in the beltway.

Good morning.

1. Meta-Consequences.
2. QE2. 
3. Talking about intellectual curiosity. OK name the 4 people you think are histories greatest rulers/leaders/lawmaker/executives. Consider their qualities.
4. START.
5. Conservative media and the UK.
6. History, conservatives and the whole closed information system meme.
7. Putin and Lativa.
8. Chasing rocks. This is not unrelated.
9. The trivial and boredom. I often (not usefully) instruct my kids that the cause of boredom is not  the universe but is internal to them.
10. Coming soon to a computer near, well, if not you at least me.

Good morning.

1. Oddly enough most kids like gymnastics.
2. Cats drink … how?
3. The nativity fast began yesterday, more here.
4. Conservative praise for Wal-Mart.
5. Mr Obama’s science guy.
6. A “panic” … of which I’ve only heard from the one source … doesn’t sound like much of a panic. I don’t think my head is that far in the sand.
7. A TSA song.
8. Lustration and the Macedonian life.
9. A massacre of which you’ve never heard.
10. Truth and manners.
11. Ms Merkel on Islam and Christianity in Germany.
12. Mr Mohler might note that the traditional rite of Baptism is an explictly and exorcism. 

Good morning.

1. Blaming the GOP.
2. “God doesn’t want you to change.” … Huh? That’s just about as really really wrong as one could imagine.
3. The uninsured.
4. Atheist “ads” and a response, and the point is that the riposte(s) are as “fair” as the initial thrust.
5. Trust your rack? I don’t think I’d trust the window adhesive that much.
6. The political thinking of JRR.
7. A book list.
8. The dome.
9. How not to do a public hearing.
10. TSA.
11. Advice regarding charity.
12. An oasis found in the midst of the self-help desert.
13. Zach hack (HT: Dr Platypus).