Stones Cry Out

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).

The fairy tale dwarf was able to turn straw into gold, but it appears he’s updated his resume for the time we live in.

In an important breakthrough, scientists at McMaster University have discovered how to make human blood from adult human skin.

The discovery, published in the prestigious science journal Nature today, could mean that in the foreseeable future people needing blood for surgery, cancer treatment or treatment of other blood conditions like anemia will be able to have blood created from a patch of their own skin to provide transfusions. Clinical trials could begin as soon as 2012.

Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster’s Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, and his team of researchers have also shown that the conversion is direct. Making blood from skin does not require the middle step of changing a skin stem cell into a pluripotent stem cell that could make many other types of human cells, then turning it into a blood stem cell.

"We have shown this works using human skin. We know how it works and believe we can even improve on the process," said Bhatia. "We’ll now go on to work on developing other types of human cell types from skin, as we already have encouraging evidence."

The discovery was replicated several times over two years using human skin from both young and old people to prove it works for any age of person.

Certainly would sound like a fairy tale, but it’s the real deal.  I’ll be very interested to see if skin can be made into other types of cells, reducing the need, yet again, for embryos to be destroyed for their stem cells.

Good morning. In a blog post title that I didn’t link, “Obama opposes permanent tax cuts for the wealthy” … I was confused by what the word ‘permanent’ might mean in that context. Permanent if it has any meaning at all really shouldn’t mean, until any given Congress decides to repeal it. 

1. Progressives and Hayek countered.
2. Presentation at the Temple.
3. Selling meat not under false pretenses.
4. Wealth and the US.
5. Discussing Obamacare.
6. Tax talk.
7. Math pedagogy.
8. Doubt.
9. Movement in the Anglican communion.
10. Heh.

As I noted earlier, if we stay on the same course, budget-wise, in just 5 years the interest on our national debt will approach what we spend to defend the country.  This must be dealt with.

Yesterday, a White House commission put together by President Obama released a draft proposal to do just that.

The leaders of a White House commission laid out a sweeping proposal to cut the federal budget deficit by hundreds of billions a year by targeting sacrosanct areas of U.S. tax and spending policy, such as Social Security benefits, middle-class tax breaks and defense spending.

The preliminary plan in its current form would end or cap a wide range of breaks relied on by the middle class—including the deduction for home-mortgage interest. It would tax capital gains and dividends at the higher rates now levied on wage income. To compensate, one version of the plan would dramatically lower and simplify individual rates, to 9%, 15% and 24%.

For businesses, the controversial plan would significantly lower the corporate tax rate—from a current top rate of 35% to as low as 26%—but also eliminate a number of deductions. It would make permanent the research and development tax credit.

There’s much more; cutting $100 billion from defense, raising gas taxes, raising the Social Security retirement age, cutting federal work force by 10%, and others.  It’s quite a sweeping proposal, and it’ll call on the government and the people alike to share the burden.

But what will it wind up doing?

Overall, the plan would hold down the growth of the federal debt by roughly $3.8 trillion by 2020, or about half of the $7.7 trillion by which the debt would have otherwise grown by that year, according to commission staff. The current national debt is about $13.7 trillion.

The budget deficit, or the amount by which federal expenditures exceed revenues each year, was about $1.3 trillion for fiscal year 2010, which ended on Sept. 30.

Even with all this, it’ll only cut the growth by half, with debt still rising by trillions every year.

This is where we find ourselves; overextended and really unable to do anything about it despite some Herculean efforts.  Our government has made so many promises that it can’t renege on, that the most we can hope for is "only" growing slower. Well, ya’ gotta’ start somewhere, and this is just a draft proposal.  But this is a good start.

Or is it?  How do other politicians see it?  (Warning: Easily anticipated reactions follow.)

Read the rest of this entry

Good morning.

1. Why is the method never questioned? That the poll (or polls in general) might be mostly garbage is not offered as a possibility. 
2. Get thee to the gym.
3. Free will and stuff.
4. 2010 census and the 2012 House.
5. On gaming debt.
6. Planned Parenthood and the Garden State.
7. Book selection and choices.
8. Memory and damage.
9. Is journalism witness?
10. Piracy.

How much has this current spending spree put us in debt?  Enough that, in 5 years, the interest on that debt alone will approach the defense budget.

Yeah, it’s that big a deal.  We need to hold the Republicans feet to the fire (as well as Democrats who actually got the right message from the election).

Good morning. 

1. Personal responsibility.
2. A pie chart and a “non-shocker”.
3. More seriously, a discussion of humanism.
4. Our liberal ruling elite.
5. A book list for liberty.
6. A small view of ritual, which sort of knocks the linch-pin out of the discussion.
7. What people will do with their phones.
8. Pain.
9. The UK and the church state divide.
10. The empty tomb.
11. Recalling a good first post.
12. Mr Biden’s phantasmagorical delusion (one shared by not a few on the left I suspect).

Opinion programs on a news network do not have to be held to the same even-handed standards that news journalists do.  They deal with opinion and don’t pretend to be unbiased or completely objective.

So it’s highly disingenuous for Rachel Maddow to accuse Fox News in general of being a political operation because of the publicity given to political candidates by its opinion shows, and at the same time doing the exact same thing, on her show and others at MSNBC.  She tries to assert that Fox is a "political operation" and that MSNBC is not, but, as this video shows, that claim doesn’t pass the smell test.

Maddow is lying to her viewers, boldly and unashamedly, on a subject that is the bedrock of a news channel’s credibility; the subject of bias.  Opinion shows are biased and she knows it, but she accuses "Fox News", the network, of being a branch of the GOP.

Glass house, meet stone.

Good morning.

1. Some post-election demographics.
2. Apparently the “it’s the economy stupid” memo hasn’t reached the White House post-election.
3. Of fear and climate.
4. How not to do diplomacy, Obama in India.
5. Mr Olberman and a prediction, specifically that the right wing will “howl for his resignation”. Oddly enough the first I’d heard about it was the NRO corner defending Mr Olberman against his firing. Hmmm.
6. A discussion between an atheist and Christian continues … now talking early church. Both side make claims that are in error often enough that I gave up on the notion of writing a post correcting their errors. I think there is more error than right in them thar woods.
7. Custody and law.
8. Predictability and democracy.
9. Dating advice for the distaff set.
10. The decaffeination process. Heh.
11. Golden tongue.