The Great Canon (continued)

So, some selected passages from tonight (Tuesday’s) canon. (tonight’s link is to Tuesday’s canon, and is the translation we used in our service tonight)

(from the 3rd ode)

In You, the Destroyer of death, have I found the Fountain of Life, and now from the heart cry out before my death: “I have sinned. Be merciful and save me!”

I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned against You, but be merciful to me, though there is no one whose sins I have not surpassed.

I have imitated those who in the days of Noah indulged themselves and like them I deserve to perish in a flood.

(later, ode five)

The midwives, though instructed by Pharaoh to kill the male infants of the Hebrews, obeyed their God instead. Now that you, my hopeless soul, have been spared death like Moses, like him also be nourished on the wisdom of the Lord.

By killing the oppressive Egyptian, Moses severed his bond to Pharaoh. But you, O my hopeless soul, have not even begun to attack the wickedness of your mind. If you have not accomplished even this much, how can you expect to pass through the time of repentance, which alone can drive away our sinful passions?

(ode seven)

You have heard of Absalom and how he rebelled against his father David, and know how he defiled his father’s bed. So why do you still imitate his wild impulses and his love of pleasure?

By following Satan your freedom has become enslaved to your body, O my soul, as when on Ahitophel’s advice, Absalom revolted against his father. But Christ has scattered the Enemy’s counsel that you might at all costs be saved.

Solomon was mighty and full of wisdom yet did wrong before the Lord when he turned to idols. And you, my soul, resemble him in your evil life.

Solomon was carried away by gratification of his lust. Alas, he who loved Wisdom now makes love to prostitutes and finds himself estranged from God. But in your every thought you have imitated him, O my soul, through your disgraceful love of luxury.

Thwack.

The parallelism I noticed to night is interesting. The text of Ode one from Monday night, is logically connected to the Ode one of the following night, not the next ode on the same night. Kinda of an inducement to pay attention, eh? An example of that? Here is the last stanza from Ode nine of Monday night,

After He had fasted forty days in the wilderness, hunger revealed the Lord’s human nature. Therefore, O my soul, do not despair if the Enemy attacks you, for it is only through prayer an fasting that he shall be defeated.

and here is the first of Ode nine of Tuesday:

The Devil showed stones to Christ which He could turn into bread, then led Him to the top of a mountain to show Him at a glance all the kingdoms of this world. O my soul, fear the Devil’s craftiness: watch and pray to God at every hour!

Where in the World (was Mark tonight)

At the Great Canon of St. Andrew. The Great Canon is, to put it mildly, a penitential 2×4 swung by a gorilla hitting you right between the eyes. An introduction can be found here.

Here are the first few meditations from the first (of 9) “odes”:

Where shall I begin to lament the deeds of my wretched life? What first-fruit shall I offer, O Christ, for my present lamentation? But in Thy compassion grant me release from my falls.

Come, wretched soul, with your flesh, confess to the Creator of all. In future refrain from your former brutishness, and offer to God tears in repentance.

Having rivaled the first-created Adam by my transgression, I realize that I am stripped naked of God and of the everlasting kingdom and bliss through my sins. (Genesis 3)

Alas, wretched soul! Why are you like the first Eve? For you have wickedly looked and been bitterly wounded, and you have touched the tree and rashly tasted the forbidden food.

The place of bodily Eve has been taken for me by the Eve of my mind in the shape of a passionate thought in the flesh, showing me sweet things, yet ever making me taste and swallow bitter things.

Adam was rightly exiled from Eden for not keeping Thy one commandment, O Savior. But what shall I suffer who am always rejecting Thy living words?

It’s not unrelenting. For example, from tonight as well, “Thou art the good Shepherd; seek me, Thy lamb, and neglect not me who have gone astray.”

Most if not all slavic and OCA Orthodox churches will be doing the Canon every evening this week through Thursday night. If you have the time and ecumenical inclination and wish a spiritual penitential push, visit and worship with them. You will be welcomed.

 

Oh, What the Heck

Links?

  1. It is indeed winter. See? Nature can impress, eh?
  2. The are spreading … and it is a religious movement. And not extremists, alas. The President’s strategy of denying their religious origins/basis is, to put it kindly, “a well intentioned but dishonest campaign”. Hmm. Well intentioned and dishonest, sounds like our President’s modus operandi for many many things.
  3. Security and technology, or asking a high school kid to hack a car.
  4. Hmm. Who’s job was it to stop the Balrog? Somebody had to, apparently, put their foot down and say, “You shall not pass!”
  5. How post-modern scholarship gets it (being it = history) wrong.
  6. I wonder how unintentionally ironic that headline is, after all “insane and unbalanced” is a pretty good self-portrait of that particular site. Well, insane might be too strong, unbalanced however is constant as the stars.
  7. Nanotech in nature.
  8. Some verse.
  9. A book now in my inbox. Looks good.
  10. Heh.
  11. I hadn’t realized most outdoors hiking/camping/mountain climbing deaths are by the very experienced not the reverse. Makes sense though. Doesn’t really sound like anything anyone needs to do anything about though.
  12. Regulation. So, is that a generalization principle? That regulation needs to establish both (a) the need for said regulation and to (b) establish that proposed regulation is feasible at a sufficiently low cost. Low. Cost. !!!! Grrr.

Confusing Tactics

So, the Grey Lady has decided enough water has passed under the bridge to have an article pointing out that … indeed there were WMD in Iraq. I guess they figure the “lied/died” meme is entrenched.

I remain confused on two points. Why release this now? And, why did (apparently) the Bush admin hide information about the WMD during the last years of his Presidency?

Links with Remarks

So, what have other people been talking about, eh?

  1. Well, that’s true, … but actually just about everyone toward the top of the world-class game is effing hard core. The exception is the few who are not.
  2. Hmm. (if true) Don’t worry that’s matched by the liberal intellectual and political elites who underestimate it.
  3. There is a serious problem when people who give voice to the cry of “teh racism” don’t bother to deny the actual fact that there was cheating involved. Is your race supposed to give you license to cheat? Or what?
  4. Now that’s very cool. On the not-very-cool and not completely unrelated news, my Christmas present for my daughter (glow in the dark plant seeds which were (supposed to be) genetically modified with jellyfish DNA to glow) … haven’t arrived.
  5. Speaking of very cool. Bet you could shoot planes with that. Somewhere recently I read that many many inexpensive drones with explosives would make tanks and capital ships like the one carrying ordnance linked obsolete, forget both sides have drones. You’re going to have a bloody war (as it always) with defensive and offensive drones fighting. That is just another front. You’re still going to need ships to carry troops, ships to protect those ships, tanks to protect infantry, and as always … infantry. I don’t think that’s changed yet.
  6. Speaking of unrestrained power in motion. This is interesting to watch.
  7. What passes as liberal labor theology is just out of my site racism. Until the minimum productivity/wave fanatics stop talking about US wage laws and start pushing for global wage standards … it’s just racism of a different sort.
  8. A very strange architectural wonder. My sweet wife has a fascination for very small houses (I think there is a movement, but don’t recall the phrase). I think the about 100 sq foot houses require a warm climate where you can do much of your living outdoors. Which is nice. It just isn’t where the thermometer reads single digits for much of the year (if at all).
  9. So, Mr Obama opened a can of stupid and declared that the Crusades were a Christian war of aggression in which atrocities were committed. Here’s as close as an even handed look at that point of view as you’ll find. I mean, if “because it was war and all wars contain atrocities” and Christianity was involved (just as Islam is involved in ISIS, which he denies (keeping that can open)) therefore … uhm. Isn’t this supposed to be a “smart” President. Why such a simplistic shallow view of the Crusades? Hmm?
  10. University budget cuts and how it is pointed out how an argument of this hardship is not made correctly.
  11. If true … the President should be excoriated for many lifetimes.
  12. Who is paying for ISIS/ISIL? (who is playing their video?) Answer should be nobody. Why isn’t it nobody?
  13. An economic indicator of hard times ahead. So, optimists, ‘xplain why that’s not a problem.

 

Missing a Measles Point

Uhm. Am I missing something or is this just a matter of righteous payback?

Kids are getting measles and it is spreading because a significant population of non-vaccinated people exists. Either the vaccine doesn’t work, or the only kids getting sick aren’t vaccinated. Isn’t that the choice? You vaccinate or you risk getting sick. If you don’t vaccinate and you get sick. Uhm, wasn’t that the risk you signed on for? I’m not getting why anybody gives a hoot about this at all.

Following Rome

So. As the Roman Empire got too large and complex they went to a Eastern/Western Empire situation. If you take as given that the job in front of today’s US executive is too complex to be handled by one man, would instead of a geographical a similar separation of responsibilities might help allow someone with who could be more expert in the area and a smaller contingent of responsibilities make sense? For the following take it as a given (as in we won’t argue that point) the job needs to be broken up and concentrate instead on how to do so.

This question it seems has two parts. The first is, wow to best break the job up. Foreign/domestic seems an obvious choice, but there may be other ways. Bertrand de Jouvenel suggested in his political philosophy that there were two types of leadership, one that drives forward toward a goal and one that can reconcile differences between people. Perhaps that would be another way to divide the two. Any other suggestions?

The second part is, how to implement this? Could this be done by dogmatic precedent (like the two term limit which followed Washington’s example for so long)? Could a President announce at his inauguration that he was doing this, and his vice President was going to, say, handle 100% of foreign affair issues and he would 100% concentrate on the domestic affairs.  The titular President would promise to rubber stamp any decisions made by his VP as if he were signing them as long as there were in the foreign affairs sphere and vice versa. Would this fly? If not, why no? Or would a full Constitutional amendment process be required to effect this?

So. Vaccinations?

Some ground rules should be established in these conversations. Everyone should agree:

  • Vaccines greatly decrease the chance of contracting the disease which they target.
  • If a significant proportion of the population is vaccinated, then epidemics are unlikely.
  • This “significant” number does not have to 100% to be effective. Flu shot vaccination rates hover around 50% for the last few years according to the CDC, and no epidemics have occurred.
  • Vaccines are not 100% risk free, although globally speaking the benefit outweighs the risk. This, of course, does not help either the person getting sick or having an allergic or auto-immune reaction.
  • All currently required childhood vaccines are for horrible illnesses. Measles for example “Most patients with uncomplicated measles will recover with rest and supportive treatment.” (from the wiki). Like chicken pox, in childhood in the 50’s and earlier .. almost all kids got the Measles. Oddly enough people survived.

My question is, if you think measles vaccinations should be mandatory, why don’t you think flu shots should be mandatory?

If you think free riders are a problem and deserve active censure, should childless middle age adults (or older) be similarly censured?

Race, Logic and the Left

Consider the following, almost to a person those on the left would agree it was (would be) OK to vote for a man for the President on account of his being Black, or for a woman (say like Ms Clinton, but never never like Ms Palin) on account of her being female, or for a student to be admitted on account of his/her gender, race or other superficial feature.

This is wrong and here is why. I will use “vote” and “Black” as my examples, but this can be extended without modification to other situations and criteria (like admissions and gender or race).

Premise 1: It is a permissible criteria to vote for a man because he is Black.

Premise 2: If a thing is a valid criteria for, then it is valid criteria against. Valid criteria compromise those things you consider when making a choice. If a thing is a valid criteria then it is purely personal preference whether a particular criteria weighs for or against a decision.

Statement 1: It is racist to vote against a man because he is Black. Conservatives get told this all the time, it must be true.

This is a direct contradiction, of the two premises. Therefore either premise one is false or premise two is false. Premise two is not false by symmetry (and kindergarten, “turnabout is fair play”). Therefore premise one must be false.

If you voted for Obama because he was Black or support affirmative action, therefore you are a racist. Logic insists. See.

Or to put it another way, Martin Luther King said the color of a man’s skin was not a valid criteria with with to judge him. Why was he wrong?

“Islam is not the Problem” … Is that Right?

Many of our intellectual elite keep (White House, others) keep repeating that Islam is “not the problem” behind the terrorism, violence and so on in the Middle East and elsewhere (France for example). What is not said in those pronouncements is, if Islam isn’t the problem, exactly then where does the problem lie? It seems likely that the statement Islam is not the problem is only half right. People who claim “Islam is the problem” (or not the problem) can be compared with people who claim “germs cause disease” (or that they don’t). Stating that Islam is or isn’t “the problem” isn’t useful. What are some more useful remarks or questions that might be raised instead? Such as, what does a more complete story/picture look like? What are useful ways of approaching this matter, not that the President and the left elite don’t have a useful way, they just are very very coy about what that way is, as “it’s not X” does not explain “it is Y”. Continue reading →

A Little Confusion

So, the left has gotten unhinged about Mr Christie offering that vaccinations for kids be voluntary. This isn’t an “anti-vaccination” position, as he hasn’t said not get them. If you need evidence that they have gotten unhinged, the proof is in the conflation, equating “anti-vaccine” with “optional”.

Look. I’m not getting the kerfuffle. Explain to me the difference between optional flu shots and optional measles shots. The first is OK, the second a horrific idea. Not getting it. So. Explain. (hint: “It’s about the children” or “‘cause they are minors” earns you a dunce cap and won’t be considered a response). So why are flu shots not required for everyone? Hmmm?

Or is this just the purely partisan stupid hacking like it looks like?

 

Wednesday Linkage

So. Back to work tomorrow.

  1. Carnegie-Mellon puts PV=nRT to the test.
  2. No prejudice in the alteration of data.
  3. Methane for vehicular fuel, exhibit a and exhibit b.
  4. School hi-jinks.
  5. Corruption in (a) government noted.
  6. Someone on the right praises Ms Obama.
  7. With the common practice of security free medical devices, do you think security will be a primary concern for its use. (Update: I hadn’t checked past the headline when I linked this. Apparently it’s a security update that makes this a possibility. I’d still be concerned however, I think if you were installing a hackable device on my heart).
  8. Very cool. Wonder what it would be like to play with that on at the same time.
  9. 200 million? That seems not very much, it’s likely they lost more than twice that from employees borrowing pencils and office supplies.
  10. Unemployment and welfare.
  11. Military aid for families takes an ironic turn.

Tomorrow’s the Day

So. Surgery (sort of) tomorrow. Technically it’s a cardiac Electro-Physiology Lab study. The lab study will attempt to replicate my SVT (Supra-Ventricular Tacchycardia). If it can be replicated then RF ablation will be used to stop the cross-talk between nerve clusters on my heart. Then the SVT trigger process will be repeated event. When if/when the SVT cannot be triggered via electodes …  we are done and my SVT will not recur (and ala Monte Python, there will be great rejoicing).

If you have a mind to, offer a prayer for me tomorrow about 11am CST. Thanks.

Update: Good news and bad news. Good news is, I’m in recovery (at home) and things look a good … for recovery. The bad news is that they couldn’t emulate the SVT event in the first step and never did any ablation. I’ll have a followup in a few weeks. One option I’m considering is seeking the option of trying this or s similar procedure with a EP specialist who is an amateur endurance athelete. My impression is that they didn’t push hard enough to trigger the event, in part not realizing that my heart is quite a bit fitter than average.

Links Ahoy

Linky link.

  1. Still seems like mental illness to me. The dysphoria <->BIID comparison seems to make that clear. It might be that the best available treatment is to live with it, but that doesn’t make it not a mental illness.
  2. Not unrelated, Mark Daniels on addiction.
  3. Toyz.
  4. Nutt’n better to do I guess than pretend to know about that which you don’t.
  5. “Digitally faked”. Now that’s just wrong (and embarrassing to own up to I’d think).
  6. An animal with a backpack.
  7. A use for old hard drives.
  8. “Everywoman” … isn’t.
  9. Extra-terrestrial taking a leak.

26 days to (Western) Lent. 31 Days for the Eastern Church (for which there are 10 days to the Triodion … this Sunday is Zacchaeus Sunday).

Tech Attempt

New Tablet … an attempt to see how android 5.01 works with WordPress for creating links posts.

  1. Oh. It’s a race!
  2. Color me unsurprised.
  3. I am not unsympathetic to the notion that at some point in end of life, end is inevitable and pain and loss of dignity is the only thing left. However, I also think euthenasia should be illegal and a likely jail term in the offing. That isn’t to say, if push came to shove and the hard choice was mine to make, I think if you love your parent or spouse, isn’t that love great enough to go to jail for your beloved? *That* will prevent abuse. It is often the error that illegal=immoral (hint: it isn’t. And furthermore, when given the choice, moral wins, not legal).
  4. I use LastPass. How ’bout y’all?
  5. Fiction, Fact, stranger than … Raiders of the Lost Arc edition.

Well, that wasn’t impossible. I need to figure out how to create enumerated list in the android wordpress app.

Tuesday Stuff

And nonsense.

  1. Heh. A history lesson of sorts.
  2. The sooner people figure out that human value is uncorrelated with salary, the better.
  3. Conservative vs Liberal Supreme Courts (by a paint by numbers metric) measure with respect to freedom of religion.
  4. Seems I grew up in a transition period. I think A grades are exceptional, but that as well, Failing means you were also exceptionally unexceptional.
  5. Church and men.
  6. Snipers and public perception.
  7. Heh.
  8. Security and Progressive. In a word, yikes.
  9. If Picketty is right (capital trumps salary) then gosh, you’d think the President would be proposing policies that encourage investment in markets. Not the reverse, ah, our moron-in-chief.
  10. Great muscular strength helps sometimes.

Monday/Weekend Stuff

Links?

  1. Ms Warren (is probably not running).
  2. Macular degeneration and a possible cause.
  3. Bake your own energy bars, with some help.
  4. State solvency and some suggestions for the basket case states. (earlier post here)
  5. Snail poisons.
  6. Almost sounds like the “cafeteria Christianity” heresy is enshrined in American common law.
  7. Damned lies and statistics.
  8. So. We all try to empathize and understand those on the other side of the aisle (or we should). But I completely strike out here. I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would utter the phrase “That is irrelevant”. Because, no. It! Is! Not! I fail to understand any circumstance in which that would not be the only relevant factor.
  9. Somebody else here mistakenly assumes the result of the Habermas/Ratzinger debate. Uhm, the argument isn’t as cut and dried as you pretend.
  10. Bang for beginners. (if you have bucks)
  11. Backwoods epicurean delight?
  12. And .. I bought the book. Haven’t read it yet though.

Last Nights Belated Link Post

So, what do we find?

  1. Consider the hypothetical …
  2. Innocence and loss.
  3. Snow.
  4. Yikes!
  5. Where accuracy is king.
  6. Your administration, restricting liberty every which way it can.
  7. Of income and nation.
  8. Camouflage.
  9. It looks like a case of overhype. In which “Potentially leading to a solution” actually means potentially maybe leading to something, but … maybe not.
  10. The response by Ferguson police examined.

A Health Note

I have been diagnosed (finally after much testing and such) with a cardiac condition known as SVT. This is repairable, which when repaired should just “fix” the problem.

My “study” which will repair has been scheduled but will be February or March.

For a person who likes and enjoys working out hard, I must say SVT is very very annoying.

Tuesday Stuff and Nonsense

Hmm, lactic acid abounds from tonight’s workouts.

  1. The President pushes wants to persuade/pressure journalists to moderate their criticism of Islam.
  2. His supporters in the press apparently fear for their safety.
  3. But it would seem one should perhaps instead do something material to discourage this sort of thing and this.
  4. Encourage this and this.
  5. Technology and impressionism.
  6. Biologists and their passions.
  7. That is what I’d expect, although those in the wake of Ferguson expect the reverse.
  8. Two notes on the European response, here and here.

Links from the Weekend.

So.

  1. Socialism, the goal of the American left is not what it is cracked up to be. (HT)
  2. Also on the left, an odd remark. Let’s see, Picketty recently wrote a book offering that investment trumps salary. The left loved it, but seems to fail to notice that SS is salary, not investment, based. Odd that.
  3. Economics for our times.
  4. An Advertising suggestion.
  5. Apparently the right defends Charlie Hebdo, the left does less so. This is strange for a very left wing satirical mag, the actual publication it is unclear why anyone would buy a copy for any reason with attitudes like this.
  6. And the American left, trying to distance themselves from freedom of expression, succeeds.
  7. Legal PED? Tylenol?
  8. On military service.
  9. Here’s a stupid idea fronted by Mr Obama.
  10. Here is a less stupid idea that Mr Obama might have said, but didn’t.
  11. Hmm. So which study is more worthless this one or this one? Kinda seems a wash to me.

Wednesday Traffic

So.

  1. Hitting the nail with the noetic hammer.
  2. We would be guessing alcohol was involved.
  3. Energy weapons, … although the writer misses that one suggestion is that energy weapons are used in space because of the small momentum transfer (low recoil).
  4. But those duecedly odd and uncouth chemical weapons can join the “Interwebs of things”. Reprising, I guess, Richard Stallman’s notion that every program grows until it can send email to, every houshold appliance gains intelligence until it can serve a web page.
  5. So, Wooly mammoth got the flu?
  6. I realize my very smart dietitian once said “cheese isn’t food, it’s a condiment” and that advice is very good for my cholesterol levels, but … cheese!!!! (grommit).
  7. Ouch evolved.
  8. Now, just apply that indemnity from suit to medicine, nuclear power, and other desirable technologies and we’d have more useful progress in other fields.

Tuesday Tuesday, Links+

Links with remarks?

  1. My, uninformed guess, would be that this liberal disaproves. Alas, he’s only half right. “Hate crime” are apparently committed when you do a criminal act and the jury decides you have ideological motives. Seems to me that a crime against police may very well fit into this category. Alas, after all, turnabout is fair play, which in this case means if the ideology is one you approve it still makes it a “hate crime”. And the scare quotes are intentional, for the real way clear out of this mess is to remove all traces of “hate crime” from the books.
  2. So. Are you the kind of person to laugh at the misfortune of someone young, inexperienced and clumsy? I certainly am.
  3. The west coast liberal anti-vaccine crowd gets a wonderfully apt acronymic sendoff. (HT)
  4. Look, when you read some statistical result you have don’t have to google for opposing studies. The first thing to do is the Fermi test, do a back of the envelope estimation of the numbers and figure out if you think it is a reasonable quantity. 1 in 30 homeless. No freaking way.
  5. So with Ferguson, the kerfuffle (I don’t recall names) in New York and the movie Selma, much ado has been made about how nothing has changed and things are still horribly racist and wicked in America. Alas, this isn’t actually true. As this post points out, things in the 50s were very very bad, but guess what?  Things are very very very different now. Why does lying about the current state of affairs help? Everybody actually knows they are lying. How does it help to destroy your credibility on the outset.

And … Ant-man? Is it too late to change the name?

Monday Link Dump

Hey. Weekend is done.

  1. Meta-linking (linking of links), and I will say, the point on the “trauma” is spot on.
  2. So, Christmas and Islam.
  3. Teh noodity meets the Constitution.
  4. One of those models looks like it’s still tracking the data, although it does it by predicting very little warming.
  5. Powder go bang.
  6. Obamacare and a twist.
  7. Nicknames and history.
  8. Danger! Danger! Danger!(Will Robinson?)
  9. Snarf.
  10. Click through, it’s worth your while.
  11. Oddly enough actual leadership involves people following your lead. Doesn’t matter what you say, if you can’t get people to follow your lead … and in fact they resist and go the other way either your a bad leader (and didn’t realize they’d not follow) or you intended the result that was achieved (the not following).

Tuesday Highlights

Last full day in Jersey.

  1. Of course, what he misses is that those millions would be captive Democrats.
  2. PC from the CP. Succinct.
  3. In that same vein.
  4. A suit that shouldn’t win.
  5. A question asked.
  6. Origen would not seen a difficulty and that was in the 2nd century.
  7. If anyone doubts modern liberals are clueless when it comes to Christian beliefs, doubt no longer.
  8. Tech and art working together.
  9. A very non-standard interpretation of Shostakovitch’s 7th.
  10. Uhm, some Duh Science. Stress impacts the immune system negatively. That isn’t news.

 

Monday Highlights

Ok. Back to it, after all, I haven’t stopped reading and saving links, just reporting them. So, what’s in the backlog.

  1. Here’s a x-mas suggestion for the old-calendar practitioners who haven’t gotten anything yet. (For those who don’t know, much of the Easter Orthodox are still on the Julian calendar 13 days later than the Gregorian until the end of the century. This is why the Orthodox Easter/Pascha is so wildly different from the West, as both are based on the full moon after the spring equinox, but … when that equinox is changes by 13 days).
  2. Mr Degrasse’s 8 “books everyone should read“. Yikes.
  3. I haven’t a clue whether Mr Schraub disapproves or approves but, geesh, anyone who holds Israel and ISIS as morally equivalent is ethically blind and should be regarded functionally as a psychopath.
  4. Here is another equivalence, possibly slightly less morally suspect.
  5. Yet again, repeat ad infintum, the argument against torture is not gotten via consequentialism.
  6. I’m not up to speed on hate speech and the legal status of same, but as a layperson one would be lead to suspect that “hate speech” should involve in some way, you know, actual hate or even mild dislike.
  7. Speaking of which, there are plenty of liberals who clearly hate conservatives. I wonder if their hate-speech microscope will be turned on themselves in this regard?
  8. Union labor and why it sucks so often.
  9. Very cool.
  10. Graft and equalite, liberte, fraternite (and buckets of blood).
  11. A gun (which is sort of on my wish-I-had-one list)

The Cunning (and current) Plan

So the current cunning (blog) plan is to return to weekday (Sun/Mon-Thursday) daily links blogging, 5 days a week and an occasional essay. I’m not giving up on returning to essay blogging but I’m not going to try that again until my #2 daughter has gone off to college (late August).

With that being said, links return tonight. Wednesday however will be a off-day as I will be on the train all day returning to Chicago.

Off the Cuff

So, Dr Gruber, not a politician. Ya think? This gets much mileage in the press and the liberal politicians are going distance themselves from him as if he he were scalding acid. Abortion as eugenics, to be applied to minorities, hmm. That’s palatable, albeit Ms Sanger was in the camp too I think. Regarding Mr Gruber, the outrage is confusing. I mean, here is a guy who admits selling Obamacare on falsehoods. But I mean, why is the right acting all put out? Those lies were not believed by the right, but by the left. Why is the left not outraged that they were sold a bill of goods? Politics remains very confusing for me.

Some IQ specialist thinks he has evidence that intelligence is not nuture but nature, which will alas irk the (mostly racist) race theorists no end (see this too). So, if it comes out that intelligence (and therefore success in school) are due to nature not nurture, can we stop with the stupidly high inheritance taxes that the left thinks are necessary to stop the “rich” from having unfair advantages?

I wonder what this sort of graph but instead for the WWII Germany/Soviet Eastern front wars would look like. It would be appalling I think. Appropos of that and in the discussion which mention Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo. But like most of the Western canonical history forget that Russian led armies sacked Paris in 1814. The same poster (rightly) mocks those college students of today who are so so so ignorant of history it seems.

Regarding Ms Feinstein and her “release” of CIA investigations on torture. The left’s thesis (which is badly flawed) is (a suggested thesis of her report) is that torture doesn’t work, ergo we shouldn’t do it. Actually historically it seems very very likely that when done efficiently with an understanding of what you are up to, it works and works very well. See Mr Fernandez excellent book  No Way In (or read about the Gestapo and well, anywhere they operated). Look. Every single time a resistance cell loses a member to the torture using establishment everyone has to find a new safe houses, move and so on. Why? This wouldn’t be so if torture was ineffective. But. It is. The argument against torture is not that it isn’t effective or cost effective but that is immoral. It is wrong. That is the only argument needed or which should be used against it.

 

Reader’s Exercise

So, Mr Obama is going to offer his “executive order” on immigration tonight. Constitutional scholars are going to offer their opinions. But I’m going to give you a homework assignment, in two parts no less.

Part 1. Imagine a Democrat held Senate/House and a GOP conservative President. Craft what you might see as an abortion executive order that would elicit the same <em>Constitutional</em> objections regarding balance of powers between Congress and Executive as are debated by, say, the Volokh lawyers in the wake of Obama’s immigration order.

Part 2. If you honestly did the homework of part one, explain why (if GOP) you support the part 1 proposal but object to Mr Obama’s proposal or, if a Democrat why you support Mr Obama but reject the GOP proposal.

(note: if you are “consistent” and oppose/support both, this is probably a sign you didn’t honestly complete part 1).

A Few Remarks on the Comet/Shirt Kerfuffle

Ms Althouse has some interesting remarks regarding this kerfuffle (I’m going to assume those readers aren’t hiding under baskets and know the actual subject of this particular kerfuffle, which dealt with particular details on an engineer’s shirt during a press release after the successful landing of a satellite on a comet). Mr Reynolds (Instapundit) points that the landing on a comet by a satellite is more important than what a person wears and the “feminists” (or some feminists) were hijacking this event. Ms Althouse in an attempt to “be provocative” suggests:

And I will be more provocative: In the broad span of human culture, fashion is more important than space travel.

She is in some ways correct, in other ways not. I will return her provocative remark by noting that which is important about fashion, is exactly the same as what is important about “space travel” or landing on comets. What is important about fashion is man’s search for beauty. This is the central search in science, space travel, and much of engineering. The search for a beautiful solution is not far adrift from the cathedral (architectural beauty) or fashion (beatiful people/clothing). Beautiful clothes and in general the quest for beauty is precisely what was achieved in a different field (aerospace engineering) as what is sought (and I’d offer rarely found) on the fashion runway. Fashion is not “more important” than space travel. Landing spacecraft on comets is the height of fashion for those who don’t do color and form, but instead do maths.

And I disagree that wearing that shirt is “an attack on feminism”. Feminism celebrates such displays, witness vagina displays, slut walks &c. I’ll also disagree with Ms Althouse that he intentionally “made a statement” by wearing that shirt. More likely, given the engineering culture, is that is was the top “button down” (read as ‘fancy’) shirt in his drawer or closet.