Hegel, Insight, and Hindsight

Thread here at ATH. Is criticism of Hegel overdone because Marx adapted him? Dunno. In any event, the line

The owl of Minerva takes flight only at the onset of dusk.

is a fine one.

Marissa Mayer, Microsoft CEO?

It sounds improbable, but aspects of her personality seem Gatesian: the intelligence, the arrogance, the relentlessness, the insane workaholism, the insensitivity...

Never Forget

Very Belated Thoughts on the NBA Finals

1. I don't begrudge high salaries to people who excel. Too many professional athletes don't excel, and collect anyway. Too many are thugs.

Apparently LeBron James is shaping up as an exception. It's good to watch him (hopefully) mature and grow out of his juvenile arrogance.

2. It was a very good series played by well-managed franchises which expressed mutual respect. The saying that It's too bad somebody had to lose applied. A heart wrench for Tim Duncan.

3. The decisive seventh game almost went to overtime. That would have been something else.

4. The whole thing about championships has gotten grossly overdone in American sports. It's reasonable in the pros (though how statistically significant is a narrow win in a seventh game?), but at the college level it's become completely crazy.

Coptic Self-Determination? Arm the Copts?

Makes sense to me, but not to the doofi or worse who are ignoring the Iranian Green Movement.

Bad as their situation is, the Copts may be better off without American support: cf. the fate of Iraq's Marsh Arabs.

The US is not doing enough on behalf of religious communities (Christian, Hindu, Buddhists, etc.) which externally funded Islamists attack. NB: I am hesitant to interfere in internal conflicts, which is why I specified 'externally funded'.

Addendum 20130823. Megan McArdle suggests we offer asylum to the Copts. I had the same thought, but in contrast to McArdle (and Instapundit), I looked up how many there are: over 7 million.

I gradually have been getting disenchanted with McArdle. My guess is that a lot of knives have been sharpened for the release of her book.

The Religious Right: A Glimmer of Sanity?

Maybe. Rising Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore acknowledges that the Religious Right has lost the culture wars. (HT: Rick Moran/PJ Media.)

Moore:

On protecting the unborn, Mr. Moore says he is a "long-term optimist" but "a short-term pessimist." He doesn't get excited every time a poll shows that more Americans are pro-life than pro-choice...

But he also believes that this battle will not be won in Washington: "You have to take it to a personal level." He touts the many faith-based pregnancy crisis centers that not only try to talk women out of having abortions, but also help with child-care, job training and housing—"all of the things that have brought them there in the first place."

Yours trulyy, after the 2012 election:

Social conservatives should stop trying to impose their religious views via the federal government. They should work to devolve social issues to the states: abortion, drugs, gay marriage, assisted suicide, etc.

Or maybe not: it's not clear whether the Religious Right understands why they lost the culture wars in center-right country that Reagan left them. Still, Moore's views are a hopeful development---hopefully not too late---and bear watching. Too bad that socons didn't think this way all along.

Speed Traps Are Sooo 20th Century

Why issue a ticket when you can seize the car and everything in it? In Tenaha, TX for example. The ACLU Apparently has stepped in. (The fever swamps have spilled into reality: I found the previous links here, at a conspiracy forum. Maybe one should say that the expansion of the authoritarian state has carried it into the fever swamps.)


The justification is the Drug War, yet this kind of action is only taken against the vulnerable. As the New Yorker piece notes, Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid was not seized although his sons used it as an "emporium of drugs".

Stillman's New Yorker article makes me wonder about linkage between the Drug Warriors and the Religious Right.

Intelligence and Ideology

Unfortunately, the point is not whether liberals are smarter than conservatives/libertarians (or vice versa). The point is under what kind of system the ruling class is more prosperous.

IMHO a nation with market-based economy requires greater intelligence to govern than a state-directed economy---but the ruling class fares better in the latter. The American Founding may have been an exception.

The NSA Allegations

1. Diane Feinstein says everthing's fine. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, also Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, say it isn't.

2. Somewhere, Brezhnev is laughing.

Obama and Egypt

After the violence involving the Muslim Brotherhood, Barry is cancelling military exercises with Egypt.

Is he trying to reestablish Russian influence in Egypt, and to establish Chinese?

No, but with the like of John Kerry, Samantha Power, and Susan Rice steering foreign policy, he might as well be.

This is a tough, take-no-prisoners bunch. If you know what's good for you, don't disagree with them---if you're an ally or an American citizen.

Addendum 20130817. Amid their solicitude for the Muslim Brotherhood, has the Administration forgotten that Egypt's military leaders are also Muslims? Just askin'.

Addendum 20130821: While this post was being written, there were already reports of contact between Russia and Egypt.

America's Arrested Development

Radley Balko reports that in 2011 there was one arrest per 25 Americans (HT: Instapundit). The great majority of these were not for violent crimes.

Is this country still a free and democratic society? Seems doubtful, though I'd like to see the historical numbers and comparison to other countries.

Stop Ogling Kate Upton, You Slavering Animals!

The poor lamb was distressed after her first Sport Illustrated swimsuit issue cover:

"After my first Sports Illustrated cover, I felt terrible about myself for a solid month," Upton tells Elle in its September issue. "Every single guy I met was either married or about to be married, and I felt like I was their bachelor present or something. I'm not a toy, I'm a human. I'm not here to be used. I am a grown woman, and you need to figure your s**t out."

So distressed, in fact, that she posed for the cover a second time.

Sad to say, Upton seems to be Republican. Is she positioning herself to run for office once the modelling/acting money dries up?

They Got Me Again!

A week or two ago, cross my heart, I had the idea of proposing that arrests for various crimes be race-normed for "fairness".

But I've been dawdling because the idea seemed abrasive and ridiculous, even for today's craziness.

Well, here it is, for real. They're already doing it in Maryland. I haven't seen anything that so flagrantly reveals that Obama is deliberately dividing the country rather than uniting it.

Richard Fernandez:

...It is not too late. Not yet. But the craziness has to stop now.

If there’s any hope within this editorial it is that the first glimmer of fear is now openly appearing within the liberal establishment. They’re beginning to suspect it’s not going to work; that survival is not guaranteed; Detroit can go broke, the pensions can be forfeit, their writ may no longer run in Cairo and American dominance — indeed their own jobs and lives — are not a given. It has finally occurred to them that the US can lose in the Middle East and beyond; that America can be defeated after all, if they behave stupidly enough.

But one must let them come to this realization themselves, just as if they were the first persons to think of it. Their vanity must be given its due. Because it is all they have. It impelled them to make history’s most stupid luxury purchase: the elevation of Barack Obama to President of the United States. That memory is embarassment enough for anyone. Let them eat crow in peace.

In principle, it is not too late. As a practical matter...

Pigs Kill Fawn

Story here. (HT: Instapundit)

Chinese Genetic Research

Wired on Chinese wunderkind Zhao Bowen, who is researching the genetic basis of intelligence (HT: Instapundit):

He and his collaborators, a transnational group of intelligence researchers, fully expect they will succeed in identifying a genetic basis for IQ. They also expect that within a decade their research will be used to screen embryos during in vitro fertilization, boosting the IQ of unborn children by up to 20 points.

The claim must be taken with salt, given the level of BS in cognitive science. However, IMHO it's likely the timetable, not the outcome, which may be wrong. And there is the potential for catastrophe: see Philip K. Dick's Our Friends from Frolix 8.

American religious kooks will not like this at all. They also won't like the opening of the Wired piece:

Zhao Bowen is late for a Satanic heavy metal concert.

(Satanic heavy metal...in Beijing? Really? This ain't your ancestors' Confucian austerity.)

The nation that invented go is putting down chips where they expect the future action to be. Success is not assured, but one wonders whether or if corresponding efforts are proceeding in the West---and whether there would be political pressure to the contrary (the Precautionary Principle in Europe and America, also the religious kooks in the US...talk about strange bedfellows).

Addendum 20130801. When Westerners sailed into Asia centuries ago, they found the locals entangled in religious and political systems that rendered them unable to resist the incursion. How the worm has turned.

Zimmerman Verdict

Rapper Lupe Fiasco suggests the black community take a hard look at the many cases of black-on-black violence. His tweet got more support than I expected. The forces of chaos are winning, but the forces of good are still around.

Make Valerie Magic Even More Magical!

Background here, here and here, for example.

A couple of suggestions, posted here as a public service.:

1. President Obama, direct America's Poet Laureate to compose an Ode to Valerie Jarrett to be read on prime time TV while video of Jarrett's slum properties is shown.

2. Have the words, or separately commissioned lyrics, set to music and sung, in prime time of course, by a diverse™ choir. Someone whose link I didn't save suggested that the tune be 'To Know Him Is To Love Him'. I suggest opening with that, then breaking into a gospel beat.

"Administrative Searches"...Using SWAT Teams

Radley Balko reports. The raids are misrepresented as administrative exercises so the police don't have to satisfy the criteria for a warrant.

Balko has a book out, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. It's not within my current budget but I hope it does well. I'd like to hope that people will pay attention.

However, I have a quibble about the title. Warriors fight people who can fight back. Warriors persevere under danger and adverse odds. Heavily armed people in battle armor who break into neighborhood poker games are not warriors. A mot juste escapes me; every phrase I can think of is, to put it very mildly indeed, highly indecorous. Addendum 20130711. Maybe it's not a mot juste, but goon is a word that comes to mind.

America's governance is no longer legitimate.

But we have to give law enforcement the tools it needs, right GOP? Democrats, what have you criminalized today?

Welcome to Another Episode of...Celebrity Urination!

Or defecation.

What else is left to do?

How brave. How transgressive. How challenging of preconceptions.

When they're flouncing around in bondage outfits---but don't call them sluts---(and Fifty Shades of Grey is a bestseller), what else is left to do? Get the American flag involved, I suppose.

NB: I acknowledge the right of consenting adults to do as they please in private. However, a society which tolerates this kind of behavior in public (or has to use the force of the State to forbid it) is in trouble. Decadence.

Addendum 20130710. Reading this, I acknowledge that celebrity masturbation might precede the above. Already sexual fondling can be seen in public.

Happy Birthday & Get Well Soon

My July 4th greeting for the country.

Addendum 20130708: From the Diplomad:

I always have loved the 4th of July. It is pure Americana. No other nation on earth traditionally has shown such joy in celebrating its creation. I have been to lots and lots of national day celebrations around the world. Most are at best joyless affairs, e.g., lift a glass to the monarch, and many involve a lot of whining, e.g., everything bad is the fault of the colonialists. Ours, however, was always an optimistic, happy event...

For the first time, I am having a hard time, very hard time, recapturing that air of optimism. Everywhere one looks, one sees the ravages of the semi-totalitarian ideology that has seized our ever-growing government...

Sexual Assaults in Egypt

From Mubarak's ouster until now, I have viewed Egyptian political turmoil with reserve.

While the Islamists were ascendant, there were at least three Western journalists sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square (I stopped reading the Google output at three): here (Lara Logan), here (Natasha Smith), and here (Sonia Dridi).


Another one during the recent anti-Morsi protests. According to Human Rights Watch (via Drudge) and others, sexual assaults continue to be widespread. They are reasonably well organized wrt how the victim is isolated and her would-be rescuers fended off.

Who is responsible? Is it just Islamists or does a substantial minority of Egyptian males feel free to act this way?

Algeria...and Egypt?...and maybe Turkey?...Iran??

A few years ago, iirc, it was reported as inevitable that Islamists would take over Algeria via a combination of electoral success and insurrection. Yet the military prevailed.

The Algerian example had slipped my mind while I watched the goings-on in Egypt. I wish (sane, decent members of) the Egyptian people well.

I bet Erdogan is watching.

Some dominos are resisting the efforts to topple them.

As events unfold in Turkey and Egypt, what side is Obama on? What side was he on in Iran?

Afterthought: Include Hillary in those questions about Obama.

The Supreme Court and Gay Marriage

I can take homosexual marriage or leave it. Discarding millennia of tradition in a burst of enthusiasm is something I have reservations about. (Millennnia of tradition were discarded when slavery was abolished. Yeah, yeah.)

My fundamental concern is not about the decision's merits or lack thereof, but about what it says about American culture. Seventeen years ago, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed overwhelmingly (Senate totals are here and House, here). Now we are dropping a bedrock assumption of our culture because of the efforts of a small but highly influential pressure group (not because of the merits of legitimate pro & con arguments or the fundamental importance of the issue...spare me).

The DOMA decision suggests the same cultural frailty which the redefinition of 'gay' did.

It also suggests that the country as a whole does not buy the stupidity, corruption, hypocrisy, incompetence, and lunacy of the GOP's religious kooks social conservatives. (Maybe Ted Cruz has the savvy to whip those clowns back into a winning coalition. Though wishing him well, I'm not sure anyone can do it at this point.)

Somewhat OT: Back in '09 I described Meghan McArdle's discussions of gay marriage as classic. Those links no longer work, but the material is archived here and here. Maybe McArdle got tired of paying server costs for her defunct site, or maybe her views have evolved.

Also somewhat OT: I'm for civil unions. When the country is divided on an issue, except in very exceptional circumstances I favor keeping the feds out as much as possible and leaving the matter to the states, or to the people. However, this post is about the cultural implications of the SCOTUS decision, not about the issue itself.

Triskaidekaphobia Done Right

As dicussed here, it is superstitious twaddle to fear the appearance of the sequence (1,3). However, avoiding all numbers which are evenly divisible by...a certain integer...is just sturdy mathematical common sense.

Illegal Bulletproof Vest?!

For what possible reason would body armor be illegal? It's harder for the cops to shoot you?

If the government could, it would remove citizens' right to self-defense. It's doing its best.

When Crazies Make Sense...

...you know things have really gone to hell.

Ann Coulter comes to mind. IF THE GOP IS THIS STUPID, IT DESERVES TO DIE:

Maybe the greedy businessmen now running the Republican Party should talk with their Hispanic maids sometime. Ask Juanita if she'd like to have seven new immigrants competing with her for the opportunity to clean other people's houses, so that her wages can be dropped from $20 an hour to $10 an hour.

A wise Latina, A.J. Delgado, recently explained on Mediaite.com why amnesty won't win Republicans the Hispanic vote -- even if they get credit for it. Her very first argument was: "Latinos will resent the added competition for jobs."

But rich businessmen don't care. Big Republican donors -- and their campaign consultants -- just want to make money. They don't care about Hispanics, and they certainly don't care what happens to the country. If the country is hurt, I don't care, as long as I am doing better! This is the very definition of treason.

Boldface mine.

AVOID THE NEED FOR SPYING USING ONE NOT-SO-WEIRD TRICK, i.e. don't accept as immigrants the populations from which domestic terrorists are recruited.

We have created two huge problems where none existed before -- domestic terrorism and government spying -- all to help the Democrats win elections by changing the electorate.

IMO the ruling class is not not in the least squeamish about spying on its citizens. They've always wanted a pretext and now they've found one. They're not happy about domestic terrorists of course, but they may feel, even if they don't admit it to themselves, that the benefits---to them---outweigh the drawbacks. How do the police justify a police state without threats?

Rubio and the American Worker

Rubio aide:

“There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it,” the Rubio aide told Lizza. “There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly."

The image at the link captures Rubio's inner sleazebag well.

Ah, don't worry, Marco. Make a speech bashing abortion and all will be forgiven.

What's next? Will the ruling class hire foreign mercenaries to protect them from their own citizens?

Does 'Peer Reviewed' Mean Only Peers Get Reviewed?

After being recently published in prestigious psychology journals, papers from prestigious institutions were resubmitted to those same journals under the names of fictitious authors with fictitious, non-prestigious bylines. 25% of the papers were caught at submission by a small minority of editors and reviewers. The great majority of the remainder, which passed through the regular refereeing process, were rejected for publication. (HT: Instapundit. See also yours truly at ATH.)

(Senior author Stephen A. Ceci studies, among other things, sex differences in cognitive performance.)

...continues surfing for info & links...

Oh, good grief! Speaking of shoddy review practices, Reynolds neglected to note, and possibly to notice, that the Ceci-Peters article was published over thirty years ago. Given contemporary beliefs like Global Warming, No Global Warming, Creationism, Diversity, Blastocysts Are People, etc etc etc, the overall situation might have deteriorated since then (notwithstanding cyber-resources which have become available to check for plagiarism).

Here is a (relatively) recent examination.

Kenneth G. Wilson 1936-2013

My reaction is here:

During roughly the same time frame in which Wilson was doing his scaling-based work, Mandelbrot was formulating (and popularizing) fractals.

In my amateur opinion each was uninfluenced by, and possibly unaware of, the other’s progress. but in a sense they approached the same monolith from very different directions.

Maybe, in part, I did not make a post about Mandelbrot's passing because I prefer a researcher who sticks to his last to one who trumpets in self-promotion.

Even though Mandelbrot's flogging of fractals was arguably necessary to get the concept on the map, his (distinctive and undeniably important) work always struck me as a bit tainted by flakiness and not as deep as he pretended. Wilson, otoh, worked on very hard problems and a cheering section was needed to bring his work to wider attention which remained mostly restricted to the scientific community. Mandelbrot was his own cheering section.

Like commenter King Ray wrote at Woit's blog: Lightspeed, Kenneth Wilson.

Morally Rudderless

1. When the Western democracies are lectured on foreigh-policy morality by a Russian despot, things are very awry.

...After his meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron, in opposition to arming the rebels, Putin declared: "You will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras. Are these the people you want to support? Is it them who you want to supply with weapons? Then this probably has little relation to humanitarian values that have been preached in Europe for hundreds of years."

(HT: Instapundit.) Humanitarian values preached in Europe for hundreds of years? That choice of words would leave a mark if the Europeans had any shame left.

2. There was a kerfluffle recently about Putin supposedly stealing the Superbowl ring of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft; for example, see here, here, and here. Obviously there is room for doubt, but in this post I'll take the accusation at face value. Three comments:

a. The pressure put on Kraft to keep silent is yet another indicator of the Bush administration's fecklessness.

b. Discrediting election opponents by getting confidential records is how Obama won elections in Illinois. Speaking of fecklessness, is he trying to operate that way against Putin?

c. Some acrimony existed back when Patriots coach Bill Parcells---not widely viewed as a knight in shining armor---left the team. Iirc columnist Will McDonough wrote a pro-Parcells piece claiming that Kraft's behavior was less than exemplary during the affair. Kraft is an Obama donor. Just sayin'.

Addendum 20130729. Re #1: But David Cameron is for gay marriage, so no biggie about the cannibalism thing. Priorities, you know.

Socons Identify Winning Issue...Abortion?!

Here:

The message at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference: Don’t stop talking about abortion and marriage. “The Republican social issues we believe in are more popular than our economic agenda,” said one speaker.

He may havea point, but not the one he thinks he has.

There are worrisome trends in American culture for which a serious social and political price may be exacted from the nation. However, just because something is a bad idea does not mean it should be made illegal. Just because something is immoral does not mean it should be made illegal.

Moral derpitude is not the answer to moral turpitude.

Computer-Generated Proofs

Despite the all to evident, and dangerous, flaws in our society and human civilization, there are areas where progress continues.

A few years ago, Microsoft researcher Georges Gonthier and INRIA (France) collaborator Benjamin Werner recast the computer-combinatorial proof of the Four-Color Theorem into a logically transparent format Last year, Gonthier and collaborators completed a computer-logical proof of something called the Feit-Thompson Theorm, which has an important role in modern mathematics.

Why might Microsoft be funding this kind of thing?

But the research could also have an impact beyond mathematics. Microsoft hopes to develop a similar system for checking the logic used in computer programs, which could pre-empt some unforeseen bugs that cause programs to crash.

(Also, Bill Gates took Harvard's hardest undergraduate math course before he dropped out.)

Abstruse Goose: All math is applied math...eventually.

Strangling the Space Industry?

The Economist reports (HT: Instapundit):

The first obstacles facing any astropreneur, in the West at least, are America’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations, known as ITAR. Like guns and tanks, almost all rocket systems and space components require a licence for export. This includes shipping them abroad, but a licence is also needed if components are worked on, or merely shown to, a non-American. Tight ITAR controls on commercial satellite technology are reckoned to have almost halved American satellite manufacturers’ global market share since 1999. Space-tourism firms may even need export licences to carry foreign passengers on sub-orbital spaceplanes. Virgin Galactic, one such firm which hopes to start operations in New Mexico later this year, received an exemption from ITAR by designing its procedures so that passengers do not see what happens behind the scenes. But ITAR seems likely to complicate the company’s long-term plan to launch from a spaceport in Abu Dhabi.

Having believed that low-cost foreign entrants had taken away business, I hadn't realized that ITAR had been that devastating.

The article also mentions insurance.

And regulation:

SpaceX, a company that has already made two successful cargo deliveries to the ISS, is modifying its Dragon spacecraft so that it can carry up to seven astronauts. This means working alongside and ultimately being certified by NASA officials, who are writing regulations literally on the job. SpaceX hopes to launch its first manned mission by 2015. If it does not get airborne before the FAA’s certification exemption expires, whether in 2015 or later, the company may face two sets of regulations. “When the FAA does step in, if they have safety requirements that are completely different from the ones NASA has put forward, then we have a big problem,” says Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who works for SpaceX.

It's likely that FAA and NASA will start a turf war, so expect a big problem.

Finally, of course, the UN.

Commercialization of space is one of the few things that Obama supposedly was good on. But, to quote Instapundit, consistency is not his strong suit. But, to be fair, no one has ever really demanded it of him.

A Retro-Upgrade to the Spoils System?

Instapundit:

Honestly, we might be better off abolishing the civil service and going back to the spoils system. At least then there’s no pretense of fairness, and you know who to blame.

Civil Service professionals overwhelmingly donate to the Democrats (HT Instapundit). When the system has been captured by a single party, the rationale for a nonpartisan, permanent Civil Service has disappeared. In fact, we might be better off with election-induced turnover.

Term limits for senior civil servants? If they're so competent, they will have ample opportunities in the private sector.

There's no good solution because high-level expertise truly is necessary. However, when the system gets partisan enough, the question arises of how much expertise there actually is.

I Knew About Obama and Chris Matthews' Leg...

...and David Brooks and Obama's pants crease. I just learned about Sarah Palin and Rich Lowry's starburst.

Questions

How many guilty men should walk free so an innocent man is not convicted?

How many fraudulent votes should be tolerated so a legitimate voter is not barred from voting?

How many illegal aliens should be allowed to stay/enter so a legitimate immigrant is not ejected/barred?

Nobody wants to talk about tradeoffs.

Should the USA Control the Internet?

Not only do the recent NSA revelations hurt American Internet companies, they give grist to the mill of the repressive regimes and UN bureaucrats who keep trying to seize control of the Internet. I look for this to emerge as a talking point.

Yessir, America's intelligence professionals sure are smart. As are Americans who are making exaggerated allegations for partisan or business reasons.

Addendum 20130612. It begins. According to Instapundit, the Europeans are not pleased. IMO there will be more. Bureaucratic attacks take time to set up.

Addendum 20131017. It continues. (HT: Instapundit.)

Porn and Copyright

This kind of trolling makes me think that Taiwan has it right: pornography should not receive the protection of the State via copyright.

Newsflash for control freaks: that it shouldn't be subsidized doesn't mean it should be outlawed.

And yet...

Is it out of the question that someday the sex industry will participate in pioneering technologies, e.g. immersive experiences with sex robots, that will be adaptable for socially beneficial purposes? The key word is someday. The burden of proof lies with those who want to turn the power of the corporatist State should not be unleashed against consumers, which should never be done lightly.

North Carolina, a Model Conservative State

Last November the GOP won both houses of the legislature and the governor's mansion. And here they go:

Tesla Motors is fighting a bill in North Carolina that would effectively ban the company from selling its electric cars in the state, pitting it against auto dealers who say the car maker has an unfair advantage selling directly to consumers online.

An LGF commenter:

...Now we get to see what a conservative, free-enterprise government can achieve.

It all depends on what the meaning of ‘free enterprise’ is. In NC, it means that enterprises like car dealerships are free to bribe Republican legislators to keep superior technology from being offered to their constituents.

Afaic this is exactly how the Republicans operated under Bush/DeLay/Lott. And this is exactly how they’d operate if they got the White House and Congress back.

They’re not the party of free markets, they’re corporate whores.

More Republican governance.

Not that the Democrats, given their way, would be better. That's not the point. The point is that both major parties have Big Government agendas among which the overall welfare of the nation is a minor concern. It's not a partisan problem, it's a ruling-class problem.

Ayn Rand, Marxist?

Ingenious take at LGF:

In my opinion, she is a Marxist, or more correctly the Marxist equivalent of a Satanist. She accepted the Marxist worldview, but inverted it. Good became evil and evil, good.

Her works read like Soviet propaganda, save that the villains in Soviet works, the individualistic capitalists are the heroes in Rand’s.

Perceptive. It may well apply to libertarians and conservatives other than Rand, especially in today's polarized environment.

Mexico > USA ?!

It's the tenth-happiest country in the world. America is not on the list.

I don't necessarily take this at face value, but it's a reminder that neither should the depiction of Mexico as a a corrupt backwater run by drug gangs be taken at face value.

The USA also is not one of the Economist's top ten countries to be born in today.

Obvious Question, Obvious Answer

Where are the moderate Muslims? Why don't they oppose Islamist terrorists more strongly?

This and this aren't authoritative references, but I've read elsewhere and it seems plausible that most Muslim violence is directed against other Muslims.

While that answers the question, presumably there's more to the situation.

Unlikely Pair

The Atlanta Journal Constitution's Cynthia Tucker and the Hoover Institution's Michael Finn.

Tucker:

Cynthia TuckerVoting Rights Act: I was wrong about racial gerrymandering
...
Unfortunately — like so many measures designed to provide redress for historic wrongs — those racially gerrymandered districts also come with a significant downside: They discourage moderation. Politicians seeking office in majority-black or –brown districts found that they could indulge in crude racial gamesmanship and left-wing histrionics.
...
As Richard Harpootlian (cq), chairman of the South Carolina Democratic party, told me: “When the only issue is race, idiots win, black and white.”

Finn:

...Particularly lamentable is to see academic standards for fourth graders turn into a “tea party” issue that’s used to bludgeon GOP office holders to repudiate a sound reform out of fear that they’ll be clobbered from the right during the next Republican primary. (One sorry outcome of both parties’ twenty-year quest for “safe” legislative seats is that nearly all of today’s credible electoral challenges come from the fever swamps and fog banks within the parties.)

The thrust of Finn's piece is that grassroots conservative activists are wrongly opposing a voluntary set of educational standards that was developed in a federalist spirit.

Give the Position to the Best Qualified? Fascism!

Via Instapundit, Advice Goddess, and Michael Kinsley, the dean of Johns Hopkins Medical School commented on Ben Carson's disapproval of gay marriage:

"It is clear that the fundamental principle of freedom of expression has been placed in conflict with our core values of diversity, inclusion and respect," Rothman said.

I didn't get the memo, or see it in the Constitution, that diversity and inclusion are core values. They certainly aren't mine. (Respect, yes, because of the fundamental dignity of each human being.)

Reynolds:

...My analysis is that, at a crucial moment, the dean failed to defend a real core value of the university: tolerance.”

Free speech and tolerance were only important back when communists and gays were being gone after. Now that the worm has turned, those bourgeois values no longer obtain.

Free speech, free inquiry, and tolerance were viewed as vulnerabilities and exploited accordingly. Common decency is for naifs.

Totalitarian propaganda contrasts hypothetical utopias with the imperfections of democratic republics. When the audience is dumb, who can successfully argue against utopia?

Memorial Day

Walter Russell Mead:

...Those who die for freedom, or to protect their homes and families from invaders and aggression cannot be pitied and dismissed as victims. They must be honored and respected as warriors, as men whose service ennobled them and calls forth an answering sense of dedication among the living.

As should the conscripts who did not want to fight, but went and did their duty even unto the ultimate price.

Pity and compassion can be noble emotions, but wallowing in these feelings is not what Memorial Day should be about. Our duty to the fallen is not just one of remembrance, or of caring for the wounded or those the warriors left behind. We also owe a debt of emulation: to continue to fight and if necessary to die for the great causes of our time. To fight an ideology of hatred that masks itself as religion is a noble and a generous thing to do; those who give their lives in the fight against this great evil are not victims. They are heroes, and they deserve to be remembered as such.

...The generals who ordered those boys and young men into No Man’s Land in Flanders were incompetent bunglers more often than not. This does not vitiate the heroism or render meaningless the sacrifice of those who laid down their lives in that war.

The Americans who have fallen in battle, and especially those who have fallen since 9/11, demand more from us than our pity. Their sacrifice demands that we live up to the values for which they gave their lives. Their memory demands that we embrace the generosity with which they placed themselves in harm’s way for our sake and that we dedicate ourselves to the values of liberty and toleration whose banners they followed to the end of the world.

Yes.

Randians Strike Me as Nuts, But...

...there's this. Multiculturalists...

...hold that the basic unit of existence is the tribe, which they define by the crudest, most primitive, most anti-conceptual criteria (such as skin color). They consequently reject the view that the achievements of Western— i.e., individualistic— civilization represent a way of life superior to that of savage tribalism.

(HT Instapundit. Boldface is mine.)

Sometimes the village madman is the sanest guy in the place.

Such times aren't the best of times.

Social "Conservatives" on the Administration Scandals

This is terrible! Our system of government is in danger! terrific! Now we can outlaw abortion and gay marriage!

(And impeach Obama, of course.)

The people who wrecked the Reagan coalition will blame anyone but themselves for the genuinely alarming condition of the country.

Ramesh Ponnuru gets it. (Last week I posted Is Impeachment Talk a Trap? Yes It Is!)

Omen? Metaphor for Embittered US Politics?

Two bald eagles fought in midair, locked talons, and crashed to the ground. One flew away; the other is expected to survive.

The national bird. Usually depicted as proud and dominant. The picture at the link is creepy.

It would have been really creepy if they'd died.

What the Hell Is Wrong With Me?

The Left screams that the Right is crazy. The Right screams that the Left is crazy.

From where I sit, they both look crazy. (Ditto for the libertarians, commies, etc.)

Who am I to criticize? I'm sure as hell no hero. No saint. No mental or moral giant.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I'm lonely.

Is Impeachment Talk a Trap? Yes It Is!

The Politics

Da Tech Guy warns that the Left is pitching in. He discusses the politics of Watergate, what had to happen and what had to not happen to bring Nixon down.

That's all valid, but IMHO the Clinton impeachment is at least as instructive. Consider the 1998 midterm elections:

The balance of the Senate remained unchanged at 55-45 in favor of the Republicans. Because of gains made in the House of Representatives, it was the first time since 1934 that the out-of-Presidency party failed to gain congressional seats in a mid-term election, and the first time since 1822 that the party not in control of the White House had failed to gain seats in the mid-term election of a President's second term.

The Democrats would looove to make the 2014 midterms a national election, i.e. a repeat of 2012. Protect the President! Protect the Constitution! Protect the nation! Protect them from evil Republicans, of course.

Is the Right dumb enough to fall for this? Well, there are reasons why they're called the Stupid Party. Some of them have been howling for impeachment all along, a fact which the Left will not decline to mention.

The Merits?

Obama is a Chicago machine politician with ties to race hustlers and violent radicals. His favored Senate-race opponents were destroyed with "illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts", so I am shocked, shocked at the recent revelations.

Famous Churchill Quote Is Outdated

Attributed to Churchill (?): A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

You wish. Modern communication technology makes the former speed of dissemination glacial by comparison. The truth also gets help from Google and such, but the lie's advantage during Churchill's time has grown enormously.

Moreover, the lie itself has been made obsolete by Frankfurtian bullshit.

Climate Analogs in the Laboratory?

Jack Risko is a smart, savvy aerospace CEO with an investment banking background who occasionally posts about climate change. He has interesting things to say although he persists in thinking he can crack the thing on the back of an envelope.

His latest is here. I am submitting the following as a comment:

1. This conference focuses on theory but Paul Williams' presentation, the second talk on the list, touches on the kind of thing you have in mind. See also Schumacher's talk and perhaps others.

2. I had a similar idea: build a miniature analog of the Earth and include the heat flow from the Sun.

How to scale everything perplexed me, though. For example, the stratosphere extends up to about 30 miles on a planet whose radius is 6000 miles. Not only that, the dynamics within the atmosphere is complex. How do you infer what happens on the Earth from what happens in the scale model (if you can even build it)?

Nevertheless, IMHO suggestions like yours have merit as exploratory research. How well can current scientific models characterize simplified heat transfer environments? If the models work well there, that somewhat enhances confidence wrt their applicability to the Earth. If they don't work well there...

Reynolds' Fourth Law: A Modest Proposal

The first three:

1. Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.

2. The more a government wants to run its citizens’ lives, the worse job it will do at the most basic tasks of government.

 3. Whatever politicians control, they will use against you to get what they want.

Actually, the third has been proposed by Will Collier. Reynolds has not explicitly embraced it.

So here is:

0., 3., or 4. When confronted with a public policy decision, politicians will prefer the option that maximizes graft.

The Right to Print Weapons is the Right to Be Free?

The federal government is trying to prevent CAD files for printable weapons from being displayed online. As Glenn Reynolds notes, they (the Clinton administration) tried to do this with cyptography.

Will they go SOPA on 3D printers by trying to cripple them and/or prevent the price from dropping?

Addendum 20130512: When I made this post, I was unaware that on 20130504162807, AR15 forum member grendelbane had written:

My new sig line may be, "The right to print weapons is the right to be free", with apologies to A. E. van Vogt.

The linked site does not assign addresses to individual posts, so click the link and search for Vogt.

Ted Cruz

He impressed me from the get-go. He's impressed James Carville too.

For once, no staircase wit for me. Per my LI link, I posted the following back in January:

What a brilliant individual. He emanates it. Listen to how quickly, how seamlessly, he reconfigures the questions.

My guideline is that, before seeking higher office, a politician should be reelected to their current slot by a greater margin than they were elected by.

Cruz heads my list of potential exceptions.

Time will tell.

I'm Too Late on Electoral College "Reform"

In January I commented:

Here’s a simple two-step recipe for a prosperous career as a leftist intellectual.
a. Write an essay titled The Electoral College: Mend It, Don’t End It. Follow with a book.

Argue that the Electoral College should be revamped with electors representing the classes of multicultural identity politics.

b. Hire an assistant to screen the flood of job offers from elite universities, foundations, and think tanks.

Alas, I was way too late. Mel Watt, former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, has been nominated to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Daily Caller reports:

“There would be a substantial majority of white voters who would say that under no circumstances would they vote for an African American candidate,” Watt said Oct. 14, 2005 during a Washington hearing held by the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act.

The Voting Rights Act should be expanded to “adjust districts to take [racially motivated voting] into account,” Watts said.

Such voters “need to be factored out of the equation,” Watt said, because “I’ve got no use for them in the democratic process.”

The former head of the CBC openly called for the disenfranchisement of voters whom he doesn't like. Let's see if he gets confirmed. I bet he does. (Given a choice between a white candidate and a black candidate, who, whites or blacks, are more likely to vote extra-racially?) 

American Entrepreneurs In Trouble?

So worries Via Meadia, commenting on an essay by Pethokoukis. (HT: Instapundit.)

My interpretation of this chart is that job creation at startups grew, peaked and began to decline under Clinton, declined under Bush, and declined under Obama with perhaps an emerging plateau or modest recovery.

My interpretation is consistent with the view that an elite ruling class is accumulating power and wealth without regard for the country's overall welfare.

The foregoing will be submitted as a comment to the linked Via Meadia piece. (Added: it's here.)

Consciousness After Death

Fingernails and hair grow for a time after death. 

Apparently consciousness, too, continues for a time in a fashion which is currently not understood. (HT: Instapundit.)

While there are spiritual and theological implications, the first conclusions my mind jumped to did not survive afterthoughts.

There are also implications for humane ways of execution and suicide. Perhaps, if there indeed is an as-yet-not-understood mode of consciousness, there are implications for abortion.

Intrade is Down

After loving Intrade for years, Instapundit linked to Bryan Caplan's huffing about how the CFTC shut out American customers from the service.

Now Intrade is down because of financial irregularities, yet neither Reynolds nor Caplan has seen fit to mention it. To be wrong is one thing; not to acknowledge it is egregious.

(Prediction markets sound like a good idea to me, by which I mean that under conscientious  management the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, e.g. steps will be taken to ensure that people who commit an atrocity do not profit from betting on it. However, good ideas can attract fraudsters.)

So I was wrong about the CFTC's decision. I was also wrong when I supported the Three Wise Men's Stooges' (Greenspan, Rubin, Summers) when they squelching of the CFTC's warning about OTC derivatives.

Deficits Are Less Bad Than Had Been Believed?

Supposedly a Harvard paper on which the deficit hawks have relied contains serious errors. Supposedly deficits are not nearly as bad for growth as Reinhart and Rogoff had claimed.

Henry Blodget gloats that deficit doves like Krugman have been proven correct. Yes, this is the guy who is banned for life from the securities industry.

Jeez, don't economists check each others' work when they debate issues of national---no, global---importance? Tell me again why ruling-class elites deserve their lifestyle, status, and pay? Can't anybody here play this game?

Rogoff and Reinhart respond here.

I'm not jumping to conclusions, but the Harvard duo doesn't look good here.

Me & Derb on Immigration

Me in January:

My long-term nagging suspicion is that (one reason why) legal immigration does not get reformed (is) because government knows full well it is too incompetent to do a professional job of regulating immigration. Cases in point: FEMA, TSA.

Derb just now:

Even if this new law were to get passed, and even if this administration, and the next, and the next, made sincere efforts to enforce it, they could not.

The USCIS people—and don’t get me wrong: they are nice people, dealt with me courteously, and I have no doubt are doing their best—cannot handle their current workload. Give them ten or twenty years to master this new bureaucratic extravaganza that Schumer, Rubio & Co. have cooked up, they might just possibly re-attain their current unimpressive level of mastery; but to imagine that the Act, once passed, will swing smoothly into action, all the things in it happening and being done, is wild fantasy.

Even If I Say So Myself

At Sarah Hoyt's:

A Hillary Presidency would be the Tantrum Boomers’ last chance to exact revenge for their inadequacy to the Great Generation. (Maybe those Americans who are zealous to tear down the country are driven, in part, by the knowledge that they lack what it took to build it.)

Especially the first sentence.

Comandante Rubio on Abortion

I call him Comandante because of this sentence in his victory speech:

It is a road that understands that the world is a safer and better place when America is the strongest country in the world.

Here's Rubio on abortion:

“The issue of life is not a political issue, nor is it a policy issue. It’s a definitional issue. It is a basic, core issue that every society needs to answer.”
He continued, “The answer ends up defining society. That’s how important the issue is.”
...
Rubio said while people push pro-lifers to focus on the national debt, jobs, the economy and other fiscal challenges, “Well, we can’t do that.”

He said, “This speaks to more than just our politics. It speaks to what we want to do in our life to serve and to glorify our Creator.”

Well, at least he's (sort of) honest. He comes right out and says that abortion is more important than all that wonky limited-government stuff.

(While googling the acceptance speech, I came across this: Marco Rubio's personal finances clash with call for fiscal discipline.)

Online Sales Tax

I've presumed all along it's an effort by established businesses to use government to preclude competition from agile upstarts that cannot afford to comply with the regulations. See, for example, de Rugy's post at The Corner.

The same process of centralization of wealth and power that gave rise to SOPA.

The system is corrupt and illegitimate: the system, not one party or the other.

(Similarly, afaic the billionaires who "demand" to be taxed more expect more back in the form of crony-capitalist favors than what they would pay.)

The Derbyshire Firing One Year Later

I'll make this criticism: the guy so enjoys being a contrary curmudgeon that in effect deliberately dilutes his effectiveness, after which he is all O tempora! O mores!

I'd say much the same about Daily Pundit's Bill Quick.

Anti-Abortion Absolutists

Wikipedia is not a definitive resource, but it looks like there is a substantial number of countries where abortion is regulated more strictly than in the USA, or even forbidden altogether.

Some Americans believe that all abortion is murder and that the 50+ million US abortions to date constitute genocide.

Well, why don't they move to one of the aforementioned countries or at least make the effort to do so? I can't think of a reason that reflects creditably on them, and some that do the opposite come readily to mind.

(Perhaps to be continued.)

Dismay! Shock! Horror!

1. Former Volleyball Star Gabrielle Reece Ignites Controversy With Marriage Advice: Being ‘Submissive’ Is a Sign of Strength. (HT: Instapundit)

Gabrielle Reece, the former volleyball star and model who filed for divorce less than five years after tying the knot to surfer husband Laird Hamilton roughly 17 years ago, recently wrote a book explaining how she got her marriage back on track.

The key? In “My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper,” Reece credits an “old fashioned dynamic” and abiding by more traditional gender roles — and has created a firestorm in the process.

“To truly be feminine means being soft, receptive, and –- look out, here it comes –- submissive,” she wrote.

OMG! OMG! shriek the usual suspects.

2. Dryden, as misquoted by Lord Chesterfield:

The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies,
But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise.

Iirc similar sentiments are expressed in the Tao Te Ching. I'll dig them out later if time and memory allow.

3. If Reece's husband has a clue, he will recognize what's going on and accept it gracefully and gratefully.

You're a lucky man, Hamilton. If you have a brain, don't push that luck.

4. I'm assessing Reece's solution as a pragmatic one, not arguing that it applies across the board.

The Boston Bombings

Right off the bat, the online Right attacked the online Left, and vice versa.

This was a very promising day for the enemies of America.

Belated Credit When (And If) Due

Obama signed an executive order requiring cost-benefit analysis of proposed federal regulations. See here and here, for example. Obama signed the order in January 2011---soon after the election of 2010 expressed emphatic dissatisfaction about his policies.

Even if the order might leave operating room for agenda-driven rulemaking, it's a move in the right direction and a nod to doing the right thing.

It's "surprising" that I didn't notice this in the conservative blogosphere at the time.

Conservatives Can't Compromise Capably

Commenter Valerie nailed it at Legal Insurrection:  

I think it’s overwhelmingly stupid to take insulting swipes at people with whom you agree. The whole point of politics is to work with other reasonable people, in order to accomplish something worthwhile. You can’t do that if you alienate potential allies that you need.

 I chimed in.

 Abortion is the most conspicuous example. This is part of the problem:

When professional extremists dominate a debate, the only thing they’d rather shoot at than each other is somebody who walks the middle ground. Compromise threatens their franchises.

It's not just the pros, it's also people with emotional investments.

Derb on Maggie

The eulogy is here. This caught my eye:

Thatcher’s changes were necessary, but they weren’t pretty. Necessary changes are rarely pretty. Politicians, however, must pick their fights and do what they can, in hopes that future generations will somehow sort out the new problems that always, inevitably, arise as old ones are solved. Things become their opposites; the chess game never ends.

Fine livings are made and absorbing hobbies are pursued by only focusing on the negative aspects of an adversary's policies.  The Left's babble about "fairness" is conspicuous in this regard but it's not the only example.

Even If I Say So Myself

Here:

When professional extremists dominate a debate, the only thing they’d rather shoot at than each other is somebody who walks the middle ground. Compromise threatens their franchises.

Arm the Copts!

The thought has been on my mind.

Instapundit asks if anyone is helping them defend themselves. Someone, especially their co-religionists, should.

And not just the Copts: facilitate self-defense for Christians and other religious minorities that are subjected to foreign-funded violence.

Hopefully US socons can take a break from losing elections via obnoxious magical thinking, and turn their energies to something that is actually important. But they should hire some good lawyers because the Saudis will not be happy. If the Saudis aren't happy, the Bush and Obama administrations aren't happy.

An Emerging Superpower and a Pitiful Giant

This is how a great power behaves:

Drug kingpin Naw Kham was accustomed to a comfortable life on the lam in the “Golden Triangle”—the remote mountains and river valleys where Burma, Thailand, and Laos meet. He had a small army to protect his meth and heroin business and a network of locals and politicians who would tip him off if the authorities were hot on his tail. But then he ordered the killing of eight Chinese nationals who apparently had not paid protection money when they sailed into Thai waters from China. It was the worst slaughter of Chinese citizens abroad in recent times, and it infuriated the Chinese public. It was enough to put the powerful Ministry of Public Security, China’s FBI, on his case.

The end of the story has already been told. Naw Kham was caught by Laotian police on the banks of the Mekong in April 2012 and extradited to China a few days later. In March 2013 he was executed by lethal injection.

The locals in some Southeast Asian countries have gotten used to slaughtering their Chinese minorities as an outlet for frustration. They're in for a surprise as the Chinese navy grows.

Meanwhile, the pitiful giant:

A senior U.S. defense official says the Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test for next week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California amid mounting tensions with North Korea.

The official says Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delayed the long-planned Minuteman 3 test because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the current Korean crisis.

Remember: if NoKo attacks, even if they knock out much of our power grid with an EMP device, above all we must avoid a disproportionate response.

North Korea is just one of the world's punk regimes.

Mark Sanford Wins GOP Congressional Primary

National Review:

What was really smart about Sanford’s strategy was that he was able to turn it into a referendum on whether people had the capacity to forgive — the God of second chances — and whether people are capable of giving him another chance, and capable of Christian forgiveness. And that is an excellent strategy for him, and there was nobody in the race who successfully countered it to focus on his term on governor.

None of his opponents pointed out that Sanford got on a high horse about Christian forgiveness while being engaged to the woman he dumped his wife and four children for.

Will this make a difference wrt the women's vote in the general election? Sanford has a presentable female opponent.

(And if he wins, he'll be a political piñata. It's almost a no-lose situation for the Democrats.)

You go, Stupid Party!

Just for the Heck of It

Hare Palin! Hare Palin!
Palin! Palin! Hare! Hare!

Hare Sarah! Hare Sarah!
Sarah! Sarah! Hare! Hare!

Burma Shave

"Conservatives" Who Know What God Wants

Afaic if gay marriage and abortion were outlawed, it wouldn't take long before religious kooks concocted other demands that are flatly unacceptable to much or most of society.

In fact, this piece claims that the abortion issue is itself a fabrication by Pat Buchanan and Nixon.

HQ Beancounters Wrecking Walmart?

Apparently the stores don't have enough staff to keep the shelves stocked.

It's one thing to push a system right up to the point of diminishing returns. That's the culture I thought Sam Walton created; it wasn't touchy-feely, but it worked superbly. It's quite another thing to push a system beyond the point of diminishing returns. Bonus-hungry wise guys in management?

This kind of thing happens on Wall Street and at start-ups that are being mismanaged into the ground, but I didn't expect it at Walmart. Where else is it going on? Are US business leaders afraid to stick their necks out by hiring even though they know they should?

Cyprus Hicks and the Sophisticated EU

Daydreams:

Wouldn't it be something if Cyprus accepts bankruptcy---and emerges reinvigorated while the EU continues to flail?

Wouldn't it be something if Cyprus accepted Russia help in exchange for a naval base?

Addendum 20130330. According to news released late Friday afternoon, the Cyprus government is stealing the money outright.

Theft in Cyprus

I never expected to be cheering for the Russians to squash the Europeans.

Self-congratulatory Western ruling classes are terrific at centralizing their power at the expense of their societies' overall health. IMO they have no idea how outmatched they'd be at existential power politics.

"Do not call up any that ye cannot put down." Fools. Culpable fools.

Addendum 20130321. The EU is cracking the whip on the government and citizens of Cyprus. Not a peep about having the French head of the IMF resign or go on leave after her home was raided in a corruption investigation. No, it's almost as though Lagarde asked to have her home raided.

We are ruled by crooks who lecture us about morality.

Gender Segregation at University College London

Here. Unbelievable.

More unbelievable is that debater Krauss participated under those conditions but does not want to debate a philosopher about the underpinnings of physics. (HT: Peter Woit)

Foreign Online Threats

Reuters headline: Cyber threats against U.S. 'ramping up,' Obama says

I am concerned that SOPA may be slipped into cybersecurity legislation. That says something about me and, IMHO, it says much more about my corrupt government. I am balancing the threat from foreign governments against the threat from my own.

Massachusetts Banned Road Travel

Signed by the governor at 12:15 8 February 2013. The ban is effective at 1600. Its duration is indefinite, i.e. it remains in force until withdrawn. It was posted on the state website at 1502.

Addendum: The ban was withdrawn 24 hours later. Okay, Deval, but don't make a habit of it. (Roads were not closed during the major snowstorm a month later. However, the amount of snow greatly exceeded forecast expectations.)

Disgusting

Headline: Royal Navy girl who fought in Afghanistan told to cover up uniform on Virgin flight in case it offended other passengers (HT: Instapundit)

Maybe Virgin doesn't want to offend the traitors, Commies and jihadis among its passengers.

The Daily Mail piece concludes with a comparison of how Americans treat behave toward troops with how Brits behave theirs. The way our serving military, draftees in many cases, were treated during the Vietnam conflict is a national disgrace. Just possibly we've learned from it. (Travesties do occur in America, but if they come to light, the blowback of public anger against the responsible organization apparently is greater than in the UK.)

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Lack thereof is why Bryan Caplan thinks the GOP loses Asian voters. A number of comments are worthwhile, for example this one and this one about Canadian Tories' success at attracting these voters: attracting them away, in fact, from the Liberals who imported them. (HT: Instapundit.)

Shikha Dalmia notes that GOP traditionalism may have echoes of colonialism and the concomitant racism. She notes also that the image of the GOP as a Christian party does not play well with non-Christian Asian-Americans, presumably less so as Asians become increasingly confident wrt the West; in other words, visible Republicans like Jindal and Haley are less influential with their ethnic group than one might suppose.

Yes, once again the Republican base is also a ceiling.

OT: Despite the best efforts of the Left to polarize the country by race, intermarriages are apparently booming. If they start to dwindle, look out.

Death Spiral States

Forbes compiles a list using what they call the taker/maker ratio and other fiscal metrics. Some surprising names are on it. The bottom eleven, from least bad to worst:

11. Ohio
10. Hawaii
9. Illinois
8. Kentucky
7. South Carolina
6. New York
5. Maine
4. Alabama
3. California
2. Mississippi
1. New Mexico

Look at the red states on that list. And some very blue states are missing.

I had no idea NM was tops; my attitude toward Gary Johnson may need reassessing, and my endorsement of Susana Martinez may have been premature.

Virtual Trekking Via Google Maps

They've done part of the Grand Canyon. Haven't tried it yet, so I don't know if it offers 360° views (or 4π steradians...presumably not yet).

I expect more--eventually, much more--like this, including virtual reality. The question is how soon.

I want Everest!

Addendum 20130209: See XKCD.

The Singularity is Near So 20th Century?

Joichi Ito, the recently appointed head of the MIT Media Lab, is not a fan:

"I'm on the other side of the singularity guys. I don't think immortality is a good thing," Ito said. People who think about maximizing efficiency "don't think about the ecological, social-network effects. In the future, every science invention we do should be at least neutral," and preferably positive.

"When you introduce immortality, you have to think about what does it do to the system. At the Media Lab, our design principle is not to make the world more efficient, but making the system more resilient, more robust."

The Precautionary Principle is an indicator of civilizational stasis. Who decides whether an invention is at least neutral? Unfortunately, do-it-yourself biotech may make despotism even more inevitable than it seems today.

In very grudging defense of Ray Kurzweil, I note that the Singularity should happen spontaneously, not be a decision made by elitist big shots ("you introduce immortality"). In that view, whether or not it's a good idea is beside the point.

A skeptic might wonder whether Joichi Ito, as he continues to age, will decide that immortality should be offered to a few individuals who are essential to humanity's continued progress. People like...Joichi Ito? Afaic, in principle, such technology should be available to all or to none.

(The Media Lab used to be Kurzweil's personal stomping grounds. Maybe the attitude of the new administration played a role in his decision to work for Google. However, IMO the primary driver was, shall we say, the lack of Kurzweil-denominated IPOs in recent years. And in Mountain View he can be close to so-called Singularity University, at which he holds the title of chancellor.)

NB: I have not checked out the Media Lab since Ito took over. The foregoing critical take is based on an a single hyperlink.

Martial Law in Arkansas Town

Crime is supposedly up in Paragould, Arkansas, so the city government is putting SWAT on the streets. As the chief of police explained at a town meeting:

Stovall told the group of almost 40 residents that beginning in 2013, the department would deploy a new street crimes unit to high crime areas on foot to take back the streets.

"[Police are] going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck," Stovall said. "If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID.
...
Should an individual not produce identification, Stovall said his officers would not back down. Individuals who do not produce identification when asked could be charged with obstructing a governmental operation, according to Stovall.

"I'm hoping we don't run across [any] of that," Stovall said. "Will there be people who buck us? There may be. But we have a right to be doing what we're doing. We have a zero-tolerance. We are prepared to throw your hind-end in jail, OK? We're not going to take a lot of flack.

This pig obviously does not consider himself a public servant addressing his employers.

More here, here and here (Radley Balko), via the Wikipedia link above.

Nope, no need for that Second Amendment. None at all.

Islam and Western Men

If Islam could demonstrate it can run a modern society--technology based, reasonably democratic, reasonably pluralistic, reasonably noncorrupt--there is an enormous base of potential converts among Western men disillusioned by today's feminized culture.

(Cf. Sarah Hoyt's recent post, which moved me to finally write down this thought.)

Addendum 20130130: Islamic science is staffing up. (HT: Instapundit.)

The Dilemma of Moderates: Muslims and Social Conservatives

Caution: the analogies in this post should not be taken too far.

Where are the moderate Mulsims?, it's sometimes asked. My guess is that some of them tacitly support the extremists but may not want to admit it, perhaps even to themselves. My guess is that some of them are bullied or worse into silence.

How to support moderate Muslims, especially the latter group, against extremists? A multicultural policy is unlikely to achieve this because it is inclined to accept the extremists as "authentic". What would Genghis do? He'd make the moderates more frightened of him than of the extremists; as it were, Your god has sent me to exact vengeance for the blasphemers you harbor. It's an unpalatable recourse, but I can't say that it will never come to that.

Something on a far more modest scale may be going on in US politics. I suspect that some social conservatives are open to compromises regarding abortion but they are being intimidated into silence by thuggish religious kooks. This may be coming from the top: just as the GOP establishment would rather control a minority party than share power in a governing coalition, the socon leadership might rather control their faction than do the same.

Obama's False Dichotomy

Supposedly it's a choice between We're all in this together and You're on you're own. Kumbaya vs. Hobbes and Darwin. Among other things, this ignores the safety net and focuses only on the downside of a market economy (just as Warren's You used our roads! rant ignores the jobs created by a factory builder).

John Althouse Cohen rips apart the deliberate fallacy and a commenter goes one better, emphasizing the different between voluntary cooperation and compulsory collective action. (HT: Instapundit.)

Obama's Big Talent

His famous self-description:

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.

There's more to that statement that I first thought.

In particular, Obama serves as a blank screen on which Kook Squad "conservatives" project their pathologies for all to see, discrediting themselves to anybody but fellow denizens of the cocoon.

And discrediting the conservative movement.

Gun Control and Abortion...Huh?

In response to gun grabbers' emotional appeal wrt Sandy Hook and other school shootings, some "conservatives" mention the "babies" supposedly killed by abortions.

This brings up, yet again, what such people's real motives are.

Would they accept a gun ban in exchange for a ban on abortions?

Addenda 20130130: Will Real Conservatives™ persuade themselves that the Second Amendment prohibits abortion, and call for judges who "follow the Constitution"? tI seems too ludicrous to post, but a time or few I'd have looked prophetic had I posted things that seemed ludicrous.

If an amendment banning abortion and gay marriage magically appeared in the constitution, it wouldn't take a week for the "conservative" kook squad to fabricate another "moral crisis" unacceptable to most of the country.

American Bastards

Should unwed mothers be disincentivized or thanked? Are they instinctively keeping the species going during a time of what may be transformation or may be decline/collapse? Are they minxes or heroines? (Finally got around to posting this thought now that Instapundit did so.)

Maybe the distinctions on which the above paragraph is based no longer apply completely.

The very fact that the title of this post is jarring says something, though I'm not sure what. The Democrats' Julia shtick says something more clearcut: they want to make hay by abetting a trend which is in all likelihood bad for the country. The danger is that we may have a class of voters who are not just indifferent to, but invested in, the country's decline (the stupidity of Romney's 47% remark notwithstanding).

I'm pretty sure that asking whether men or women are to blame is a false dichotomy.

Addendum 20130602 Apparently China is hard on single parents. The linked piece is by a British former single parent who whines about how hard it was without once considering whether it was a good idea; she ignores or is unaware of Helen Smith's trope that if you subsidize something, you get more of it. Made a bad decision? Blame society!

(Is there a positive correlation between readily available welfare and single motherhood? There is an anecdotal one (destruction of the black family, etc), but I wonder about the rigor.)

Nothing in this Addendum is intended to erase my concerns about false dichotomy.

Aaron Swartz

Alan Turing comes to mind. To a lesser extent, so does Jan Palach.

14-0 Eight Minutes In

One of the few loyalties I've retained from my Midwestern Catholic boyhood is an affinity for Notre Dame. Being content without a TV, I decided to spot-check the game online.

It's been like sitting down to follow the election returns. I conceded and edge to the opposition but expected a close contest and a real shot for my side.

Whereupon I was shocked to realize that my team didn't even belong on the field.

(That said, Alabama knew what to expect in a championship game and Notre Dame didn't. I can't make the same excuse for the Republicans.)

I Was Wrong About World War I

I had thought it ended with the collapse of Soviet Communism, but neo-neocon is right: the damage to the West's cultural confidence has never been repaired.