Stones Cry Out

Well, in Le Tour it looks like third place on the podium is the only thing not wrapped up … Bradley Wiggins, Lance Armstrong, Andreas Kloden and Frank Schleck all have a shot. Two Alpine stages left. If I had to guess … I’d say Frank will take that spot.

On to the links.

1. Your group and my group.
2. On false false analogies.
3. With my blog’s name, I had to link this.
4. Libertarian legal bloggers on ACORN.
5. Advice on learning a language.
6. On Russia from Russia.
7. Why is the crises (rush) being invented?
8. This reminded me of that unfortunate incident in Once Upon A Time in America.
9. A prediction.
10. Settled …
11. Of Government and competing models.
12. The secret to 50 year old marriage … it seems “traditional gender models” are statistically quite significant.
13. The changing demographics of Christianity.

Those campaign promises are reaching their expiration dates quite quickly.  Back during the campaign, Obama ran hard against Hillary Clinton’s mandatory health insurance.  PoliFact.com has the quotes.

"Hillary Clinton’s attacking, but what’s she not telling you about her health care plan? It forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can’t afford it, and you pay a penalty if you don’t," said one of his television ads .

His mailings made similar claims, which we rated Half True . At one campaign stop, Clinton waived the mailers and declared, "Shame on you, Barack Obama!"

"Meet me in Ohio," she added. "Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign."

Obama was vigorous in his attacks on Clinton for including an indvidual [sic] mandate in her plan. Now that the Democrats in the House have included a mandate in health reform legislation, he’s fine with it. He admitted he changed position in the interview with CBS. Full Flop!

All that talk of Hope and Change is really just subject to political expediency.  If you believed what he said, what you need to hope for is that he doesn’t change.  (If you didn’t, well then, this is not a real surprise.)

Gee, you think so?

The possibility that the President’s overexposure is hurting his message is not the big news story. The big story is that it took the media so long to catch on.

Hat tip: Hot Air

1. In vino veritas … for the fixie fan.
2. Two interpretations of Ms Clinton’s umbrella, here and here. Neither of course are on the charts for Mr Obama’s mythical path to a nuclear weapon free world.
3. A “read the bill” response.
4. Does Mr Obama has the wrong map to the Middle East (HT: Mr Lozowick)?
5. And, on the subject of maps … an odd one.
6. Ms Delsol in Unlearned Lessons would counter, I’d offer, that the large (failed) experiments of Fascism and Communism have similar roots, contrary to this suggestion.
7. Mr Obama’s foreign policy as a Bush third term.
8. Of violence and unions. I’d note that being “founded in violence” is not necessarily a bad thing … so were virtually all nation states.
9. Speaking of violence … art?
10. Did he really compare mandated car insurance to health coverage? Where’d the no-fault analogy come in?
11. How to really distance yourself from a the “buck stops here” Presidency … that is to say whining.
12. So … “doff your galoshes and into the breach one more time”, err, I think Shakespeare put it a little more fluently.
13. I do like that phrase, coining the present as “at the edge of Tradition.”
14. An endorsement … lost.

1. Well, that makes my day seem mundane (which might not be entirely a bad thing).
2. What’s going on in Afghanistan … doesn’t seem like a COIN operation, I wonder why not?
3. Well, my second favourite cyclist crashed.
4. One man’s reaction to Microsoft (and a far cry from yum or apt-get).
5. Obama and Up!
6. Indeed. “What happens if cost growth exceeds projections, the way it has in Massachussetts, and AFAIK, every Federal health care program ever?  Where do we get more money?”
7. I’d suggest the biggest reason is on the evening news scientifically predicting the weather every day and getting it wrong so often.
8. Catching Hillary being, well, not thinking exactly.
9. A Soviet scientist.
10. Russia’s schools.
11. It’s not for their good, it’s to ease the possibility of our pain.
12. Obamacare killed?
13. This is something everyone should read … and then ponder Obama’s notion of a moderate Iran and the need to open relations with them.
14. On the living Christian life.

Well, it’s been a long day, as I noted Sunday night and I thought I’d do something different tonight … and talk about my day and what I’m doing down here in Florida. I’m not going to mention the name of my customer for obvious reasons. Two co-workers and I flew down Sunday night to install two in-motion printers on a shipping/manifesting system, each of which should be able to process 15-20 cartons per minute. It was the middle of last week when we decided the work required would be impossible to complete in two weeks for just two people, so we added a third. I’m the software guy (developer, maintainer, installer, documentation and all the rest) on the job plus the project manager. The other fellows are responsible for the electrical and mechanical installation. When the wiring is completed and the I/O checks out (both digital and serial hardware is tested and verified) one of the installation guys will head out. My nominal schedule has that for tomorrow night. We look to be on schedule for that … but it’s going to be close. So … for the last two day’s I’ve mostly been doing whatever I can to help out the install. Schlepping boxes, pulling cable, climbing ladders, crimping cables. Tomorrow I’ll be verifying I/O as the field wiring is landed in our panels.

So far it’s been a happy project. The overall project manager for the installation is a friendly guy and things seem to be going well. The schedule has slipped some but his customer must not be giving him what-for on that account (and it very well was their fault). The other subs have been pleasant too. While the facility is warm it is somewhat air-conditioned so we don’t have to deal with the Florida heat and humidity all day. We do in fact marvel at the contrast between the Chicago and Florida summer (and flora and fauna). The systems we’re installing are on a high mezzanine with a steel grate on the floor. As that is the case, we’ve been instructed where possible to pass wiring under the floor. So I’ve been up ladders and scissor lifts a lot in the past two days.

My feet are very sore, pads and tendons both. After spending a day on my feet (or two) working on steel or concrete floors I always end up in awe of people who work on their feet for a living. As this week progresses I’m going to be on my seat pounding the keyboard more and more … which will be a welcome relief.

Anyhow, that’s what I’ve been about lately.

Y’know, that whole "signing statement" thing wasn’t apparently so bad after all.  So says one man who used to decry the use of it.

Congressional Democrats warned President Barack Obama on Tuesday that he sounded too much like George W. Bush when he declared this summer that the White House can ignore legislation he thinks oversteps the Constitution.

In a letter to the president, four senior House members said they were "surprised" and "chagrined" by Obama’s statement in June accompanying a war spending bill that he would ignore restrictions placed on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Obama said he wouldn’t allow the provisions to interfere with his authority as president to conduct foreign policy and negotiate with other governments.

The rebuff was reminiscent of Bush, who issued a record number of "signing statements" while in office. The statements put Congress on notice that the administration didn’t feel compelled to comply with provisions of legislation that it felt challenged the president’s authority as commander in chief.

See, it’s not that it’s a bad thing in and of itself.  It’s just that it sounds so much like…well, you know.

"During the previous administration, all of us were critical of the president’s assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce," the lawmakers wrote. "We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude."

Let’s see if this matters to him.

One thousand words, meet picture:

And according to the article, we may dip even below all other estimates.

The federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time ever and could grow to nearly $2 trillion by this fall, intensifying fears about higher interest rates, inflation and the strength of the dollar.

Neither the Congressional Budget Office nor the White House estimated those kind of numbers.  As I’ve said before, complain all you want about how Republicans overspent (and I did), Obama and the Democrats make Bush and the Republicans look like amateurs.  Nobody who complained during the Bush administration should be shouting for joy at all this new government spending on new government programs.  But most Democrats are.

Oh, by the way, this is not counting the Obamacare bill.

That has many Republicans and deficit hawks worried that the U.S. could be setting itself up for more financial pain down the road if interest rates and inflation surge. They also are raising alarms about additional spending the administration is proposing, including its plan to reform health care.

Look your children and grandchildren in the eye and tell them this is for their own good.

1. SWFs.
2. Shame? Shame!? Few politicians have much, as for Mr Obama, well you decide.
3. According the the cricket race watchers … there is hope.
4. Raindrops.
5. Remind me how this would have gone over in the press (and the rest of the left) if it was Mr Bush doing this.
6. I was going to offer that this post was spot on, but then remembered this is Star Trek … which is not science fiction.
7. Replace “independence of the central bank” with “independence of the actuarial industry” and the reasoning still holds. Congress remains “weakly accountable.”
8. Considering icons of the Theotokos.
9. On global warming.
10. For anyone interested in theology and science, a essay featuring John Polkinghorne.
11. More on that topic here.
12. A quote.
13. Very very (as in Apollo) cool.
14. Liberal bigotry against Christians or just ignorance on the part of a reporter?

There is an aspect to public healthcare that doesn’t get much discussion. The likelihood of it being yet another way in which we willingly give up yet more and more of our freedom to make personal choices is a clear and present danger. Here is how the process would likely work:

1. The first thing that happens is seemingly innocuous from a liberty perspective. The government gets involved in the actuarial responsibilities related to healthcare.
2. Step two is that costs become difficult to control.
3. Step three is that some bright knucklehead in Congress or more likely in a regulatory agency in a matter unrelated directly to healthcare realizes that some policy changes in his or her purview might be made and his reason for pushing it is that it will aid the financial burden pressed on them by healthcare. And consider the nature of policy chances which have an affect on health. Are these changes liable to increase or decrease your ability to make free choices?
4. Then others will notice that worked … and the process will little by little erode the range of reasonable choices left to the non-wealthy.

And this avenue, not really pushed today by those who oppose government healthcare actually gives a big opportunity for a conservative opposition leader to get a big start. The Democrats have come a long way from their populist roots. In their eagerness to push back and distance themselves from the evil “big corporate interests” (in favour of big government interests it might be noted), they’ve also made a mistake. They’ve also distanced themselves from all business, including the small ones. Populism and independence from government was in part the card that Ron Paul played. And he got some mileage with it, which says something because he’s well, something of a flake.

1. This might spur some discussion. One wonders if Mr Sunstein would apply this law/logic to the left as well? For example the various unfounded and inaccurate Palin rumors.
2. More links. For myself I still have failed to see any credible remarks much less a defense of the Cap/Trade bill in the light of the current economy.
3. Le Tour and the lantern rouge.
4. Jobs and the stimulus.
5. More problems with Mr Obama’s “Russia reset.”
6. Conservatism and marriage.
7. Yet more data for the pro-choice crowd to dismiss as irrelevant.
8. And yet there are those who contended that racism and bigotry does not exist on the left.
9. A passing noted. I think it might be a good idea to read some of his books.
10. Jesus is not safe.
11. Le Tour and the universality of politics.
12. Mr Obama … trying to color the US orange.
13. Considering the popular history market.
14. Posner and Becker on the academic bubbl

From Dawn Eden, regarding Sonia Sotomayor’s thinking on stare decisis which, apparently, varies depending on whether or not the ruling has to do with abortion. Eden states,

As I wrote when liveblogging this exchange, apparently, when the subject is antitrust law, Sotomayor is perfectly comfortable with admitting that new information must be taken into account. But when the subject is abortion law, she doesn’t want to even discuss whether a change in “factual findings” is relevant.

1. Humor and the healthcare discussion.
2. For the google reader/firefox audience.
3. Yes, law and society are entangled in a complicated dance.
4. Abortion and public healthcare.
5. Middle east and missile defense.
6. A monk of the Sketis remembered.
7. Pre-soviet Russia … some history.
8. Advice for conservatives regarding public healthcare.
9. Hmm, I’d counter that racism is a conservative thing inasmuch as it is a human and conservatives are human.
10. Yet another liberal that needs to read the Petraeus COIN manual.
11. Mr Obama says he wants to lower the abortion rate.
12. Reflecting on Mr Obama’s Africa sojourn.
13. Mr Obama and corn.
14. But … does it have a name? How about Bob?
15. Left/Right and a cultural comparison.
16. At life’s end … the upside.
17. Cricket races.
18. Afghanistan.

Much of my spare time until the month of August is done will be devoted to trying to make a dent in the large reading assignments handed out in a spirituality class I’m taking. We are getting pretty unrealistic (for the employed) reading loads with the caveat to “get familiar” and not read in depth each piece. So I’m doing a lot of skimming. We’ve been reading a lot of early patristic writings moving forward slowly through the historical documents from the church on this matter. We started with very early texts and some were partially gnostic … the line between gnostic and non-gnostic is not as sharp is pretended. An interesting tidbit from that week was that the conventional wisdom regarding gnostic texts is that they were suppressed by the church. This is a hard accusation to make seeing that most of these documents we have today have been preserved in monasteries.

The next week we read and discussed works of Origen, Evagrius and St. Gregory of Nyssa (his Life of Moses an allegorical reading of the history of Moses). St. Gregory remains overall probably the most prominent non-celibate church father. Even though married and not celibate he penned a famous defence of virginity, in praise of the celibate life. He was happily married, this was not a document motivated by any misogynistic strains. However, his wife and child (children?), died relatively young … this was an age where the average age for women was substantially lower than men because of the risks of childbirth … and children frequently died in their early years. We didn’t read this defence, it would be off topic, but it was mentioned in passing. We also read the St. John Cassian books/chapters from the Institutes on the eight passions. I do really like reading St. John’s writings, which I find refreshingly straightforward and practical.

For next time the large part of what we are reading comes from the pseudo-Macarian homilies, Isaac of Sketis (which I haven’t printed for reading yet), some letters of St. Antony, and Evagrius “on tempting thoughts”. I thought I’d finish tonight with a few observations on what I’ve garnered on monasticism in the early church (3rd century and going forward a few centuries).

What were these men and women doing going into the desert in small cenobitic communities and even solitary isolation? One analogy might be to today’s large scientific projects like the Manhattan or Genome project. This was a project to discover what regimen, what practices and what methods might be used to shape the human self to the ideal they and their community envisioned. It was a radical (or “extreme” in today’s reality TV vernacular) project in which these people, using themselves as both the subject and experimenters. You find a common element in their writing, the urge to observe others and “take the best examples” from each and try to emulate that quality. It seems obvious that we could learn more than a little from their centuries of experimentation.

From current Vice President Joe Biden,

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

Now, the essential liberal complaint against Sarah Palin is that she is simply too ignorantly stupid to be our Vice President, much less President.

Remind me again… how is Joe Biden a better choice?

Update: watch for yourself. I’m reminded of when Orange County, California went bankrupt, in 1990s, and the proposed “solution” was to levy a special tax. You see, this is the way liberal socialists think… government will solve the problem if they have enough money.