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Friday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. A global warming statement posted, will this mean that liberals will no longer to be fans of Mr Rutan and his wonderful toys?
  2. And, my commenters strenuously object when I point out that in my youth, global cooling was the fear. See, some proof? I remain confused on why increases in the quantity and quality of arable land isn’t a good thing.
  3. Well, Mr Obama will be able to lock up the “please sir, may I have another … (whack)” crowd.
  4. Computational complexity and popular games.
  5. Well, that’s half right. Mormons are not a Protestant sect. Mormons are properly termed a “Christ cult”. Nicene Christian sects are also Christ Cults. Fair or not, Nicene Christians, especially within the context of discussions with Nicene Christians group all Nicene affirming Christ cults as Christian. Got it? It’s really not that hard. Oh, and Protestant sects is the label for those Christ cults that broke from the Roman Catholic church during the reformation.
  6. Hope, change and Libya.
  7. Well, there’s the cutest thing you’ll see all day.
  8. Mr Obama, misleading from the front.
  9. The Serbs and Ms Jolie’s movie. The Serbian members of our church are very nice people, and I wish we’d sing their music more because it’s beautiful. The point is, my contact with Serbs and Serbians has been quite positive.
  10. The third term loophole.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Question for dem Dems

Apparently in Florida Democrat PACS and large contributors are posting their own pro-Gingrich anti-Romney ads. Two questions. First, do you think that is because the feel Mr Gingrich is a weaker opponent against Mr Obama or is it because they actually prefer him as a possible President. If you thought it was the former, and not the latter, why do you think that supporting a person who you think is less fit for office is your patriotic duty? If you think that it is likely that the answer was the former how do you then explain the lack of objections to this tactics on left leaning blogs?

Posted in Politics.


Thursday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Of the generations of men and the passage of time.
  2. The “history” channel, why scare quotes? Check the link.
  3. So, what is Mr Rove noted for, especially by the Democrats? It seems the biggest difference between what they complain about regarding Mr Rove and the activities of Mr Obama is for which side on which they strive.
  4. More unusual campaign tactics.
  5. The SOTU speech, highlighting contradictions and a flowchart and a little highlighting of characteristic Obama dishonesty
  6. One more on the speech. So look at the first two quoted pieces here. How can a person say those things in one speech and not be termed a deceitful liar? How can Democrats defend this man regarding this sort of dishonest? I really don’t understand it.
  7. So, how did Mr Romney manage to pay 13% in taxes while making 20 millions? By donating 16% of his income to charity. Odd that both Mr Romney and Mr Buffet share the same opinion on the efficacy of government spending vs their own charitable contributions. Can we not pretend those of us who don’t make millions also share that same opinion about government efficiency vs our own charity?
  8. So many crocodile tears. It strikes me as very false when lots of people suddenly “like” you, praise you, and talk about how wonderful you are when you’ve been affected by tragedy … and the never even noticed you prior to the event. Seems very fake to me.
  9. 100% to 1000% yield? Who thinks that’s a good idea? Seriously.
  10. This quiz has been going around. I scored 12-15. How about y’all?
  11. Geek zoooom
  12. Monster? I’d have thought coward the better term.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Deterministic, Random and the Other Choice

In a recent conversation on free will and determinism some confusion (disagreement) arose over the contention that the descriptions of systems and their behaviors being “deterministic” and “random” were a complete cover of the possibilities. This is not the case. Emergent behavior is described as one way to conceptualized the set missing possibilities.

Emergent behavior lately has been described in two ways, “strong” and “weak” emergence. The distinction is claimed in that weak emergence behavioral patterns are derivable (or at least highly suggestible) from local interactions. Two examples of that might be Brownian motion and the ideal gas law. Brownian motion describes the motion of large objects in a bath of small particles. These large particles “dance” and move about. Their speed and travel is determined by the temperature and the relative dimensions and densities of the particles in question. Considered as an aggregate the distance traveled in a set time and the distribution of those distances is quite regular (hence determined). However, exact details of the actual position and travel of a given particle is indeterminate. This hierarchy of regimes is a feature of all systems described to have emergent behavior. Similarly the ideal gas law which we all recall from High School, PV = nRT, where P is pressure, V is volume, n is a number of atoms, and T is a temperature (in absolute scale). This can be derived by using equilibrium statistical physics methods. It is deterministic, but the motion of the atoms in the bath which is being described cannot be described deterministically. Here in one hierarchy you have randomness and at another layer, determinism.

Strong emergent behavior:

Laughlin belongs to a). In his book, he explains that for many particle systems, nothing can be calculated exactly from the microscopic equations, and that macroscopic systems are characterised by broken symmetry: the symmetry present in the microscopic equations is not present in the macroscopic system, due to phase transitions. As a result, these macroscopic systems are described in their own terminology, and have properties that do not depend on many microscopic details. This does not mean that the microscopic interactions are irrelevant, but simply that you do not see them anymore – you only see a renormalized effect of them. Laughlin is a pragmatic theoretical physicist: if you cannot, possibly ever, calculate the broken symmetry macroscopic properties from the microscopic equations, then what is the point of talking about reducibility?

Two examples of this might be, from biology, the behavior of termites (drawn from Gazinaga’s book on the brain and free will) in which local rules driving the action of termites when the population and health of a colony passes a certain threshold, the underground colonies suddenly alter their behavior to the large cemented/clay towers seen in southern Africa. Another example might be schooling behavior of fish and flocking by birds. Local simple rules governing speed and direction when a size threshold is reached suddenly change the behavior from individually driven to schools or flocks. And while (like with Brownian motion) some general characteristics of the school/flock might be imagined to be derivable, the direction and course of that flock is not (which akin to not being able to predict the direction and distance that a individual large particle travels in a set time period).

So in general we see a hierarchy of regimes in which a lower random bath can give rise to very regular behavior at a large level. When that emergent behavior is a computational network or like the brain large collections of such networks… then things can get interesting and at that point you are well in this unknown not-derministic/not-random world. 

Posted in Philosophy, science and math, Short Thoughts.


Wednesday Highlights

Well, yesterday I walked in and wham! calls and stuff started piling on just as I walked in. Links?

  1. Unintended consequences of our broken patent law, that is more and more we depend on trade secrets.
  2. Making the rich “pay their fair share” … hmm. Another unintended consequence on the way. With Mr Romney as an example, apparently why his taxes are lower than what you might naively expect is because he invests in tax protected bonds and such. So … if the response is to get rid of that loophole, that will make such bonds more expense. What are those bonds? Hmm, education and public works make a large part of that market. So, the consequence of killing that loophole will make school improvement and government projects harder to fund. Is that what you really want?
  3. How to do bad science, a primer for the statistically naive.
  4. This is not unrelated, i.e., more scarcity scares examined. Oh, from that same site … that must have made an interesting (and somewhat loud) noise when it went bang.
  5. Some of us are better at learning how to do that than others.
  6. Austerity, oddly enough can work.
  7. A top 10 list.
  8. Secular penance and repentance? How does that work?
  9. The White House principal, do not interfere in family matters, i.e., which to them means allow abortion. Yet … then why have they decided to terminate farm children working on the family farm? Hmmm? Seems to me that violates their stated principal.
  10. The master is surprise, pleasantly.
  11. A tool for the next oil spill?
  12. Belongs to the 99% … in his  own (1%) mind perhaps.
  13. Seems to me that’s $100 million better spent on R&D.
  14. Value? What’s that mean. Price? Utility? Purpose? The statement “cannot tell the value of X from Y” means what?
  15. Someone apparently would prefer to whack strawmen. Mr Mankiw is a “conservative” economist. Read his blog, his book, his course material and then you can argue about what actual real-life “conservative” economists argue. Here is a link to Mr Mankiw’s blog.
  16. “Pain killing injections” a headline noted about Mr Urlacher is more than a few places. The Tribune article I read the other day had the same headline. Reading further however, we find “Teradol” doesn’t haze (reduce) pain at all, but is an anti-inflamatory agent. I guess “multiple anti-inflamatory injections” doesn’t have the same cachet … even if that is the accurate interpretation.
  17. Seems to me the first step isn’t randomly attacking the problem by fixing the “five most common problems” but get a ODB scanner on on it and read the code. Any (most?) parts stores will do that for free. Then you have a hint as to what to fix.
  18. Hosanna-Tabor and consequences for foreign policy. Hey, does anyone know of any left leaning defenses (blogs?) of the President’s position on that?

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Monday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Mr Paterno as confused grandpa … and why be confused about Mr McQuery? Do you think that generations of teaching moral relativism to replace “do the right thing” has no consequences?
  2. Lag times in production consequences and data to prep you for Mr Obama’s campaign upcoming lies regarding oil production in his tenure.
  3. Apple and OWS.
  4. Grist for the education debates.
  5. Some post Sanctity of Life Sunday thoughts offered. More here.
  6. More Democrats misbehaving.
  7. Links for the philosophically minded.
  8. Hashing out Antisemitism.
  9. “Fast and Furious” one of 10 (?!) similar operations.
  10. The Slavery Question and the early church.
  11. When  is a default not a default?
  12. Going green and the oops factor.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Friday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. It’s all about focus … whaddya think of this art piece?
  2. I haven’t read them all yet, but I agree, a disappointing set of answers. “Action as a principle” is the best one I saw in a quick scan of replies.
  3. Build a better battery and the world will beat that path to your door. How about a better FFT?
  4. Stimulus then … and now on account of decades of environmental activism and barriers to construction … that wouldn’t be possible so stimulus today amounted mostly to repaving roads that didn’t need it yet. Now there’s a legacy for which Mr Obama must be very proud.
  5. In praise of really bad science, and perhaps praise is deserved.
  6. A partial defense of SOPA/PIPA.
  7. On those who think Mr Tebow prays for victory (haven’t apparently noticed he thanks God when he loses).
  8. It’s unclear what they fear, that these two Democrat majority companies might be compared?
  9. Not that’s educational, let’s have a debate … and then in the aftermath one side is termed “a bully” for merely participating.
  10. Losing our edge, evidence here.
  11. Drones in combat.
  12. Zoom.
  13. Apparently every statement made by the DNC is “officially doctrine” for every Democrat.
  14. History and 4 bits.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Thursday Highlights

Back home, whoo hoo. Links?

  1. Medicare and FICA aren’t taxes? FICA is 15% and Medicare 5% … so that makes 20% to start.
  2. Energy and a pipe.
  3. Speaking of energy.
  4. Sex and discrimination and a case of abuse ignored.
  5. Speaking of sex roles, looking at advice from more than a century past.
  6. If this was fiction, we wouldn’t find it credible. And … by the way … we’re all just softies and wimps.
  7. Cost control failure.
  8. Some advice from a noted Alexandrian ascetic.
  9. More from a different one here.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Tuesday/Wednesday Highlights

Links?

  1. So, a technique popularized in narratives but proven ineffective … and now encouraged in public schools. So is that “go figure” or “color me (us) unsurprised.” And “brainstorming” isn’t skunkworks. Skunkworks techniques do work.
  2. The march of bad science, how it works edition.
  3. Bang!
  4. A question.
  5. Hall of fame or shame?
  6. So the Dems think that inequality is high on that list. Apparently Gallup doesn’t even find it in the top 5 (or 10?).
  7. The rigors of yoga.
  8. It’s not a mild winter everywhere it seems. When the cold masses don’t come south … that isn’t because they aren’t cooling someone off.
  9. Disease and resistance.
  10. NYT plays the straight man to great effect.
  11. Faith, science and a liberal icon.
  12. Should there be an agency for that?

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Grr

Well, posting from hotels is hard in the morning (for me at least). But I’ll get a post out tonight.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Monday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. So, from the government’s point of view, is there no important difference between a person without a child and couple with a child(ren)?
  2. A book noted, which I guess touches on evolution quite a bit.
  3. Song.
  4. Civil war or not? Does it matter?
  5. The nut for the GOP to crack.
  6. No. It’s not a “war crime”, or OK, maybe it’s a “war crime” (with scare quotes) but doesn’t rise to the level of war crime.
  7. So, do  you want to buy some? It’s real good shit, man. (literally)
  8. So, defenders. Do you want to cite some actual Washington venture capital successes?
  9. The innumerate candidate. It was a tie, move on, ever hear of error bars, eh?
  10. Ms Jolie’s new film and the land it portrays.
  11. You know, at the beginning of the concert when they announce “turn your cell phones off” that doesn’t mean “put it in airplane mode” and now you know why.
  12. Global warming silliness. Which brought a consideration to mind, it occurs to me that the AGW alarmists really think that the issue isn’t just a demographic shift moving peoples about as areas of arable land shift about on the planet, but that they think that human life on the planet is in jeopardy. That’s just nonsense. I wonder if they realize that.
  13. That high risk pool, bad numbers on both ends.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Friday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. A slight change in the aerodynamic profile there.
  2. Let’s see, a Democrat recipe for business success, the taxpayers will be loaning money to startups, but require they can’t advertise or market, can’t negotiate with vendors, and can’t hire people with prior expertise. That’s a bucketful of beltway stupid if there ever was one.
  3. Those who think this man committed war crimes are picking up more of them buckets (of stupid). We gave him a Medal of Honor for a good reason.
  4. So while considering crossing the Rubicon … in stealth. The only remaining trick is with term limits and elections, eh? One wonders how Mr Obama now feels about his participation in efforts to block appointments by passive aggression.
  5. Sex and the Song of Songs in modern context.
  6. If you can consider spending $45k on a wristwatch … money means something different to you than the rest of us. On the other hand, it is an interesting piece.
  7. A common (but I think silly) modern neurological objection to free will noted.
  8. A global economic indicator to consider.
  9. Hah! Take him out back and beat the snot out of him. That’s the solution.
  10. That’s English they’re speaking. Amazing. I wonder if I’m as incomprehensible to them as they are to me.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Thursday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Taliban/Al-qaeda embassy?
  2. It might be faith in the system, but do you really take civil breach of contract disputes to the police?
  3. Hosana-Tabor … asking the question why Mr Obama’s White House didn’t think the 2nd Amendment figured in the picture.
  4. Those anti-human activists.
  5. Property rights and digital content.
  6. One hard way to make a living, an example from the animal world.
  7. Human’s in the zoo for fun and profit.
  8. A supporter of the platitude man himself (Mr Obama) questions the soft content of GOP speechery. At least they (the GOP) haven’t picked up (to my knowledge) the Obama tactic of saying one thing to one group and the opposite the next day to another.
  9. China girding its loins for what purpose?
  10. Race that bike!
  11. Our anti-business White House in action.
  12. “No legal recourse” … oops, not true alas.
  13. Law without morals, not so good, in fact completely ineffective.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Wednesday Highlights

Woohoo, normal schedule, today at least.

  1. Why the notion that the choice is either not both?
  2. Hand and mind.
  3. Models and testing.
  4. Unintended consequences on the way.
  5. Joan of Arc.
  6. Hitler as man not monster.
  7. Somebody’s failing to notice that winning an election isn’t anything like the position which winning yields.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Monday/Tuesday Highlights

Hmm, well, here’s a few links.

  1. AFA/Obamacare … and standards of regulations not up to snuff, surprised?
  2. A good answer to “Is God answering the prayers of Mr Tebow?”
  3. A Roman Catholic physics joke.
  4. Corruption and the White House, dear me, hmmm, is that change we can believe in?
  5. A name change and subsequent legal difficulties seem related.
  6. Blood libel and academia.
  7. Theophany/Epiphany in ice and water.
  8. Private schools for the poor.
  9. Very cute.
  10. Sudoku and some maths results.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Admin News and a Short Unrelated Question

OK. Well all is not well in the deep dark underbelly of this blog. Sometime soon I’ll get to the bottom of it. Regular blog posting will resume tomorrow (noon? night?). Tonight I’ve got to head to bed early to catch an early plane home. Things went successfully and the next job is local. I’ve started reading a bunch of things on which my regular discussion fellows likely have read more than I, that is neuroscience and evolution … and I still want to write more on the Ratzinger/Habermas discussion.

The rss feed works … but google is ignoring it and I’m trying to figure out why. Well, that should shake out.

Can anybody explain why Mr Obama (and his Democratic) supporters believe that the “regular grassroots” $5 contributor had (and will) be the mainstay of his fundraising efforts when there are 72 million voters (of both parties) eligible, 60% of those vote and only half of that 60% for the Democrat … and he is expected to raise 1 billion? How’s that logic work out?

Posted in Admin, stupid questions, Travel.


Friday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Stand your ground?
  2. Bones bones bones. (HT)
  3. Which is then followed by an extended late childhood.
  4. Case in point.
  5. Feel good vid for the day.
  6. A peace a price too high?
  7. Uhm, maybe, but COIN included a whole list of things which the armed forces were not the best provider but currently the only available resource.
  8. Entrepreneurship.
  9. Obama rolls out strategy for the future military. Some reactions from the Shadow folk, here, here and here.
  10. Fast and Furiously covered up.
  11. Social (?) mobility. How/why is earning in a dollar value equated with social status?
  12. Killing fields.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Thursday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Knee jerk misquote noted.
  2. 1 Liter SUV?
  3. Riffing on Talking Heads lyrics.
  4. Fresh off of various blatherations about Iowa demographics, now we have New Hampshire demographics.
  5. Not firing the little grey cells overmuch.
  6. Back when newspapers didn’t assume people were morons they could have fun with infinity.
  7. Considering the recess appointment. Although perhaps the lesson here is that the only people in the room being honest are those who don’t flip their point of view depending on who’s in power, which might explain the lack of defense for those move observed on the left, those who wish to criticize this sort of thing in the future remain silent?
  8. What would Edison say? Uhm, how about AC power is dangerous! Everyone should use DC only.
  9. So is IPAB Constitutional overreach?
  10. Some unfortunate facts about patents and patent law.
  11. What to do? Hmm, probably the same thing you’ll do going to your “Feminist Physics” or “Feminist Inorganic Chemistry” or “Feminist Number Theory” classes.
  12. For your wall.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Wednesday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Well, church and state, or “how then shall I vote?”
  2. New England greenery and the West coast transplant.
  3. Skinny skinny gymnast.
  4. Dicy ditching despicable over-regulation.
  5. For that bullet proof party dress.
  6. That thing called science.
  7. So Obamacare expanded coverage and will also cut costs, and things like this will never ever happen. Riiight.
  8. A book noted. Another one noted here.
  9. Captioned for your edification.
  10. Weight loss.
  11. Iran and the gulf.
  12. Freedom of press and speech, why the distinction?
  13. Why vote for Mr Santorum, or at least one reason.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Tuesday Highlights

Well, holiday hiatus is over. Links?

  1. Modern edukashun.
  2. Economics and a clash of narratives.
  3. Considering boots on ground.
  4. Seeking to emulate the Norks.
  5. Two sides of a question here and here.
  6. Democrats moving to tea party sympathies?
  7. The problem with the disillusionment is that it is accompanied by some notion that this outcome isn’t a design flaw.
  8. No. Russia using drones isn’t the problem with “drones aren’t an act of war?” It’s Iran, or other non-state actors following that lead.
  9. Damned lies.
  10. OWS and a social psychology view. (tip of the hat).
  11. Retail litmus test.
  12. The meaning of a word: political.
  13. “Selling like hotcakes” … have you seen any evidence of booming growth of, say, IHOP? Me neither. Perhaps he really meant what he said.
  14. It means “return of Zune.”
  15. A poster. Ride that bike dude!

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Belated Linkery

Yikes.

  1. Not optimistic about the NK situation.
  2. So a few deaths of note, a tyrant, a public intellectual of the lesser sort, and and a public intellectual of the greater sort.
  3. Perhaps a metaphor for government.
  4. So do you recommend camouflage for the grade points or standing your ground?
  5. Study the classics.
  6. One more reason to despise the architects of Obamacare, they engineered the assumption of yet more federal power.
  7. So, which do you prefer, “love of”, “lack of”, or “too much” … and the rest of the post is worth reading too.
  8. Iconoclasts in our midst, and btw, the trivial defense is just that, trivial.
  9. I think it’s just a market twitch.
  10. Now there’s a surprise, Lada and “best in class” in the same sentence.
  11. For those who prefer to mock Fox and its coverage. Ooops.
  12. The world’s grandmaster at estimation in action.
  13. OK, granting the, err, his premise, then the question might be why does he engage in it so frequently?

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Car Bleg for Advice

So, my wife alas, had little fender bender with my dearly beloved high mileage Honda Insight (2000) and I’m in the market for a new car. I’d made the promise to myself to continue to upgrade mileage … but that isn’t going to be possible ’cause nobody makes a higher mileage US car than the manual transmission 2000-2006 Honda Insight (with or without MIMA). I’m thinking of going for a slightly elderly used gas sipper as a stop gap in the hopes that in 4-5 years I’ll be able to get the car I really want, i.e., that can get better than 150mpg (or 2/3 gallons per 100 miles if you prefer) on dry summer roads. Oh, don’t worry, no real damage was done, my wife is uninjured (and nobody else was involved).

Looking around this morning, it seems a 5 speed manual Toyota Yaris, Kia Rio, VW TDI, or Ford Focus look like the best bet. What do y’all think? Any other suggestions? It’s replacing a two seater so it doesn’t have to be large and likely when I turn it over it will be handed down to one of my girls, who are fast (gasp) approaching collegiate age.

Posted in Daily Life.


Confusing Medium and Message

In a somewhat unlikely Star Trek NG episode the crew encounters a race which speaks, unfortunately, entirely through cipher that is coded references to historical events. Blog, well, neighbor Eli is in a huff because some philosopher of science (Signorelli) offers that the “language of maths” isn’t sufficient for human experience. He offers as counter example not a cipher but a number substitution code and suggests that if you encode ordinary language with numbers you’ve translated text into the domain of maths. Well, sorry. That doesn’t it, the medium is not the message. That you are viewing this short essay which is encoded in ASCII and transmitted via HTTP protocols over 802.1 specified media, i.e., numbers. The message is not maths.

A possible line of argument that Mr Signorelli have more difficulty defending is whether is this possibly apocryphal anecdote whether the speaker at the funeral in his speech was getting off track or whether he was using the language of Maths (in the real sense) to express and work out his grief at a colleagues passing.

On the other hand I might suggest a better avenue to counter Mr Signorelli in somewhat smaller domains. There is an audience and a market for combining ones’ passion for maths with other more basic passions, such as the artist Bathsheba and her wares (which I recommend and am an occasional customer). Consider that “ora” which can be bought as jewelry suitable as a gift for your lover … is two interlinked tetrahedra in its self-dual symmetrical glory … and its pretty. For the right recipient there might be a message of maths (not as transmission technology) but which conveys “I love you.” I’ll also offer that when I was dating the woman who would become my wife, I sent her (in the very early 90s) a love letter written on an HP-48 calculator and transmitted using the same calculator to her via programs written on the calculator (and its serial port) to send the letter via FAX when I was traveling. That is a way in which the medium and the message mix a bit, in that computer geekery was used to transmit, well, passion.

Drop in on departmental lecture in your local university maths building. What you hear there is the language of maths. That is what Mr Signorelli is arguing is in sufficient to transmit the breadth of human experience. Basically, he’s right, except that for those passionate about and fluent in that language it can be used to transmit some of those human messages and experience. It is hard even for the maths monomaniac to begin with “let’s consider a function of one complex variable” to say in that language “Let’s get pizza tonight.”

Posted in Short Thoughts.


Thursday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. This is in cartoon form, but a serious point is made. What do you suggest to fix this educational gap?
  2. Yes, premise 1 seems false.
  3. Tebow furor, an extreme example.
  4. Undercurrents in Iran, a film noted.
  5. What to eat while doing LSD on bike (LSD -> Long Steady Distance, not the hallucinogen).
  6. Memories … .
  7. ePaper and the better nightlight.
  8. Not the normal headline.
  9. Tea Party/OWS totalitarian version … noted here and here.
  10. Cuteness.
  11. This will have dire consequences.
  12. Right after you ban talking in cars too.
  13. Sleaze to the end.
  14. Government spending and a study.
  15. Porn must be very popular in Egypt … or something like that.
  16. Never beaten athletic team.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Tuesday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Panacea? Nope. “Sucks less” might be a better term.
  2. A PSA for today.
  3. Of Jane Austen and the Russian novel(s).
  4. Very very very slow motion photography.
  5. So is that it? The OWS sees the fundamental problem that if the “1%” have some money then there is less for them?
  6. Mr Tebow terrifying? Really? I’m missing out on the Tebow hoopla I think.
  7. Altered pronunciation.
  8. How not to get excited about math (and how to miss the point).
  9. And on the other hand, this is how to make the argument that one can indeed get impassioned about numbers (or the argument that should have been made above).
  10. Zoom (and boom?).
  11. Forecasting and honesty.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Tuesday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Predators@Home … more here.
  2. A book unrecommended.
  3. Money and the (illegal) drug pipeline.
  4. I have no idea what right wing/left wing means in this context.
  5. Shocking, err, well what is sort of shocking is the gourmet fare the “1%ers” get for school lunches.
  6. Pointing out the “bizarro econ” world the President inhabits.
  7. Reverse smuggling anyone?
  8. A Groseclose collaborator gets noticed for his work.
  9. Grousing about Ms Clinton.
  10. The left wants national health care, I guess that’s because the figure the way to help the bottom 10% is to make sure the bottom 90% have the health care poorer than the bottom 10% have now. That will somehow be “better” because it will  be “fairer.” Riiight.
  11. Don’t worry, he’s just a teacher.
  12. Music.
  13. Toodles then.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Monday Highlights

Good, well, afternoon.

  1. If you tie salary to actual performance, surprise … actual performance begins to track salary. Or perhaps the surprise is how it doesn’t track as well as it might even now.
  2. Another book noted.
  3. One more.
  4. Marcus Aurelius growing in popularity?
  5. An appreciative word for the NyTimes?
  6. An appreciable part of the 1% and how their protest might look.
  7. Economists bicker.
  8. Another economist, so … do you agree or not?
  9. I’m not really on board with Mr Martin’s corpus of fiction, but GURPS … on that we’ll agree. GURPS was the way to go (back in my RPG playing days).
  10. The EU and the growth solution.
  11. What they say and what they do.
  12. Hello! And this is not unrelated.
  13. So … what’s next? Othello? I think the “Othello syndrome” is likely more often seen in our public arena, i.e., a guy moving to take out an opponent at the cost of his own career.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Friday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Oooh, a book list, with remarks.
  2. The methods of Mr Corzine.
  3. Well, OK then … Silent Night indeed.
  4. What free market was “never meant to be” … apparently “what the market will bear” has nothing to do with the free market.
  5. America!
  6. So … will/has the admin tendered a “what we were trying to do” explanation?
  7. Publish or perish … perish the thought?
  8. What the fans of porn ignore.
  9. While one might consider the plans of mice and men, sometimes men’s plans are disturbing.
  10. What is the reason for special protections for one profession in that regard? I’m not seeing it.
  11. Empathy and the rodent?
  12. A loophole to widen.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


(Yikes) Mid-week Highlights

Busy busy.

  1. SCOTUS recusal talk here.
  2. Continuing with legal stuff, how about campaign law and Mr Bolton/Mr Gingrich.
  3. The American response to insult that theme continues here.
  4. Now that we’ve mentioned Pearl Harbor … look at this post. I hadn’t realized the technical hurdles required to attack Pearl Harbor. How about you?
  5. OWS … day care for adults.
  6. The friendly neighborhood utilitarianism defender not ready to acknowledge his criticism of virtue ethics is shared by his utilitarianism (his crit of v/e was that one needed to have a prior definitions of virtue, which holds for utilitarianism which needs a prior definition of “the good” or “happiness”, the latter oddly enough Aristotle defined in terms of virtue).
  7. Salvation not about “keeping out of Hell.”
  8. Art from the depths of depravity and deprivation.
  9. Demographics.
  10. I guess I’m not a “typical Republican” as described (and I’m not sure I have every met one). That of course doesn’t mean the typical tag isn’t right, but it casts (for me) some doubt on the assertion.
  11. Labels and the left.
  12. Stupid green tricks.
  13. Hayek and macro more here.
  14. Church and a boomer.
  15. That must have been a blast to drive.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Travel Again

Off again and too busy to get links out this morning. Tonight, probably a double share if the hotel has reasonable bandwidth.

Posted in Current Events.


Monday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Are these ideas past their expiration?
  2. The IPCC and a contributor.
  3. Apparently to be on the left, you need to check your sense of humor at the door.
  4. What to do about Burma.
  5. Interesting video sequence.
  6. A book recommended, I got it and started reading it.
  7. Another book.
  8. And one more book, which I haven’t read, but is now in my inbox.
  9. Stupid school administration tricks.
  10. A translation of “too big to fail.”
  11. Innocent until proven guilty … so how do y’all feel about Mr Cain in that context?
  12. The primary case against Mr Gingrich.
  13. Unprepared for (the extend of the inroads of) moral relativism.
  14. Cool tech.
  15. Prison and imprisonment … here and here.
  16. Searching for Diogenes … or the  candidate furthest from the amazingly dishonest norm (such as Mr Obama)?

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Attempting to Make It Sensible

Recently, in a links post, the difficulty for the Western individualist to make sense of the Afghan legal ruling, which allowed that a young girl who was incarcerated for the crime of being raped might be released if she married her rapist, was noted. There was a query of how this might be understood which was not undertaken by anyone, and the following attempts to discern this and some discussion follows.

Our Western society, unlike most of the historical past world and we are informed by anthropologists some 80% (by population) of the current world centers itself on the individual and locates status primarily with wealth. By contrast the rest of the world centers itself not on the individual but the family (perhaps extended) and status is primarily located via a shame/challenge calculus. This legal ruling doesn’t “compute” from a I/W society but makes some sense from an H/S perspective.

In an H/S society normative social intercourse (how one moves through society and interacts with people) is structured differently. A well defined list of men whom a women is “not allowed” to have sexual intercourse with is defined, fathers, uncles (?), and brothers for example. Social movement of people is structures so that a women might never isolated (in the absence of other women) with a single male with whom sex is taboo. Putting oneself in a situation where that occurs is the primary law which the young woman noted above broke, the evidence that this occured was the rape. In our society a woman is so frequently alone in the presence of a non-taboo restricted male that the realization that societies exist in which to do so is non-accidental is hard to imagine. Armed robbery is an intentional act and never accidental. In part, because one can’t accidentally or thoughtlessly commit armed robbery this can be deemed a felony transgression. In a society in which being alone with another man (for a women) is just as non-accidental as armed robbery is how blaming the rape on the victim is justified.

That however isn’t the site of the difficulty I have with the crime as given and its rectification. Many, if not most crimes, have a instigator and a victim. We in our I/W society see rape as a crime of violence comitted by a man against a women. Is rape, in an H/S society, a crime of violence or something else? Individuals are not seats of motivation like in the west, so who (or what) in this particular case is the instigator and the victim? If the young woman, considered as an individual, is not the instigator (or victim) then what part does this judgement against her lay, on what basis is it calculated? Do answers to those questions make it clear(er) why marriage to the rapist might allay the crime?

Posted in Cultural Commentary, Ethics, Short Thoughts.


Thursday/Friday Highlights

Well, I was busy this morning … and have an early flight back to the windy city (from the temporarily windy SouthWest) and won’t have time then. So, here’s what I found out in the wide world today and yesterday.

  1. A little grist for the Habermas/Ratzinger can secular society survive question.
  2. Our happy regulatory state, who needs freedom when you can ban happy meals?
  3. Education as signaling.
  4. GOP speechwriters bread and butter for the summer campaign.
  5. Hypercard? Heck, how about AREX? Now, that was completely cool.
  6. Grunt! I’ll allow here that in college I began lifting and went from a completely skinny prototypical pencil necked geek to a bench press of 225 while at a weight of 155. I’m lifting again, and Wednesday before Thanksgiving managed a one rep max of 195. Woo hoo.
  7. National debt by nation, how about consumer debt? Howzzat figure in?
  8. To solve a problem, using the tools at hand.
  9. Biz taxes.
  10. Somebody hasn’t read much Solzhenitsyn on the subject of suffering. I’d recommend beginning with the First Circle. Or read this, which I read (most of) on the plane ride west.
  11. Those emails don’t come of as from seekers but salesmen.
  12. A book recommended.
  13. Lawyers might defend it, but when you have to “go carefully through the rhetoric” to figure out if he really made the promises that the speech(es) seem to imply, the rest of the world calls that lying.
  14. Kind like all them California individualists all dressing and speaking identically.
  15. “Famous historian” … whom I’ll admit of whom I’ve never heard. But then again apparently his field, to judge from wiki, is contemporary American history … a topic on which I have read little if anything.
  16. Getting closer to an actual viable commercial replacement that meets the “gets better mileage” than my current car.
  17. Security and the world, part one and part two.
  18. Obama and the sociopath connection.
  19. Meritocracy and misunderstanding.
  20. One serious can of RAID, wonder what the bug looks like now.
  21. Modern science and the totalitarian state.
  22. Our failings highlighted too.
  23. And some advice for putting Church and life together.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.


Today’s Link Post

Will be delayed. Work intrudes.

Posted in Admin.


Wednesday Highlights

Good morning.

  1. Two from Mr Christie, here and here.
  2. Exactly! A good resource book from a secular philosophical perspective is from Mary Midgely in Wickedness.
  3. So, good idea or not?
  4. I suspect the reason revelations of misconduct have not affected the true believers.
  5. A huge roundup of alternative history fiction involving Mr Hitler.
  6. So, is that what the OWS is about?
  7. OK then.
  8. Taxes and income disparity.
  9. We kill them. The point is not the killing, I’d think, but killing them humanely.
  10. Impromptu improv.
  11. Even considering this requires such a radical readjustment to my notions of justice that I’m still not seeing how this might be a good idea.
  12. A book considered.

Posted in Link Roundup, Links.