Obama: Political system broken – Abby Phillip – POLITICO.com.
For the record: gridlock is not a bug. It’s a feature. That’s how the constitution ensures that the majority doesn’t steamroll over minority political opinions. Goodbye gridlock, hello oppression! (HT: Pseudopolymath
A Father’s Search for a Drug for Down Syndrome « Isegoria.
Wow. Isn’t treating Down Syndrome something like treating left-handedness? Or low IQ? I’m not so sure that someone who is created in the image of God needs to have what makes them different “cured.” (HT: Psudopolymath)
Greenery in Canada: We have a winner | The Economist.
I’m not particularly persuaded that carbon is a harmful chemical, but as a measure of efficiency, it’s great. I’d trade a carbon tax for income tax any day of the week.
‘Reduction’ and Abortion-Culture Newspeak.
Ew:
This is difficult reading: “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy.”
I had never heard of this, certainly not as an elective procedure.The witness of conscience apparently can’t be suppressed. At least not totally. And not without a great deal of work and denial.
Even some people who support abortion rights admit to feeling queasy about reduction to a singleton. “I completely respect and support a woman’s choice,” one commentator wrote on UrbanBaby.com, referring to a woman who said she reduced her pregnancy to protect her marriage and finances. One fetus was male, the other female, and the woman eliminated the male because she already had a son. “Something about that whole situation just seemed unethical to me,” the commentator continued. “I just couldn’t sleep at night knowing that I terminated my daughter’s perfectly healthy twin brother.”
My wife is a fraternal twin. I’m thankful to God to have her and a brother-in-law.
“They invent ways of doing evil,” indeed.
I’ve actually heard of this before. I don’t think I’ll be reading the article.
Why, Even Some Automakers Support it!.
Perhaps this ‘endorsement’ is simply the simpering “yes, massa” of corporate executives now servile to leviathan.
Or maybe this support reflects some automakers’ realization that satisfying this mandate will be more costly for their competitors than for them – and, hence, that the mandate will increase the market power of these supportive automakers by differentially burdening, and perhaps even bankrupting, some of their rivals.
Or: How a little Heinlein in the diet can save a lot of time in philosophy class
I wasn’t allowed to read Heinlein growing up. No, that’s not true. If I’d discovered Heinlein on my own, I don’t think they’d have taken the books from me. But my mom threw out all her copies before I learned to read. She decided Heinlein hated Jesus. Growing up, I got the sanitized version in bedtime story format. (What, you didn’t get Space Cadet at bedtime?) My first Heinlein that I actually read was sometime after I turned 20.
It’s probably best to save Heinlein until after you’re an adult, because he always seems to have an agenda. There’s always one character whose job it is to lecture the reader, usually by having a very one-sided conversation, in which the opposing view says, “Well, gee boss, I hadn’t thought of that.” If you agree with his point, it’s great. Wow! Look at him hit that one out of the park! But if he’s preaching on some note that you don’t see eye-to-eye on (say, free love), you’re stuck watching an idiot get slaughtered in a one-sided debate.
After a while, you get a little wary of the set-up. You can see it coming and you start preparing better counter-arguments in your head. Of course, whoever is standing in as Heinlein’s preacher can’t stand against your arguments either, since he can’t hear you. So he keeps rambling on. Eventually, you have to learn to let it roll, or throw the book across the room.
Now I’ve finally gotten around to reading a little Plato, and let me tell you, the minute Socrates opens his mouth, I got an old familiar feeling. This guy is totally copying Heinlein. No wonder they called him the gadfly of Athens.
And just like Heinlein’s preachers, some of his positions are good, and sometimes… just… stupid. All he needs is somebody to come along with a reasonable counterargument. Maybe from a Christian. Because most of the time, his arguments just sound… pagan.
Using Value-Added Trade Estimates, We Have a +$32.25 Trade SURPLUS with China for 2011.
According to research at the San Francisco Federal Reserve, 36% of the value of imported goods goes to U.S. companies and workers, and for Chinese imports it’s much higher: the U.S. content of “Made in China” is close to 55%. Reason? The SF Fed explains:
“The fact that the U.S. content of Chinese goods is much higher than for imports as a whole is mainly due to higher retail and wholesale margins on consumer electronics and clothing than on most other goods and services.”
The iPhones imported from China help illustrate this – of the $600 retail price of an iPhone that is imported and “assembled in China,” more than 60% goes directly to Apple and other American companies.
And there you go.
The Unholy Pursuit of God in Moby Dick by R.C. Sproul | Reformed Theology Articles at Ligonier.org.
It seems that every time a writer picks up a pen or turns on his word processor to compose a literary work of fiction, deep in his bosom resides the hope that somehow he will create the Great American Novel. Too late. That feat has already been accomplished and is as far out of reach for new novelists as is Joe DiMaggio’s fifty-six-game hitting streak or Pete Rose’s record of cumulative career hits for a rookie baseball player. The Great American Novel was written more than a hundred and fifty years ago by Herman Melville. This novel, the one that has been unsurpassed by any other, is Moby Dick.
My opinion of RC Sproul just went down a notch. Obviously, he doesn’t know a thing about fiction. Moby Dick is an awful novel, and doesn’t shine a candle to Robinson Crusoe, let alone truly great works of fiction, like The Lord of the Rings, or Pride and Prejudice. Moby Dick, like all of Melville’s work, is boring and pretentious.
Actually, now that I think about it, searching for the great *American* novel is setting the bar pretty low. Outside of genre fiction (historical, SF, Mystery, etc.), there’s hardly any good American fiction left. They’re all boring and pretentious.
Maybe Little Women?
neumatikos 