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Sunday, March 11. 2012

Penn Sounds Off on Daylight Savings Idiocy

LATIN IS THE BEST LANGUAGE

Book review: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

Supersize, please: The fattest and skinniest US cities

Why Baby Boomers Will Have a Troubled Retirement (h/t Insty)

What retirement?

Some good links at Carpe

China: electricity use down 7.5%, 26MM newly unemployed

Romney Beats Obama 48%-43% In New Rasmussen Poll

Steyn: The Fluke Charade - Why should we have to fund a middle-aged schoolgirl’s sex life?

All of us are born with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and a lifetime supply of premium ribbed silky-smooth ultrasensitive spermicidal lubricant condoms. No taxation without rubberization, as the Minutemen said. The shot heard round the world, and all that.

Because pregnancy is a disease, right?

Symposium: Why Do Progressives Love Criminals?

Prosor: Arab Countries Support an Attack on Iran

Afghanistan joins railroad era - 100 years late

Argentina’s Slow-Motion Disaster

Falklands War: China learns from Argentina's mistakes

Why Is Washington so Bad at Strategy? Generals and politicians never seem to be on the same page. Is there any way to fix it?

Incoming UC Students May Be Asked To Declare Their Sexual Orientation

Reminds me of a story a friend told me about enlisting in the Navy during Vietnam as an officer. An interviewer asked him "What is your religious preference?" "Episcopalian, " he replied. "But you wrote down that you were Jewish," said the interviewer. "I am," he said, "but you asked my preference. I would prefer be to be Episcopalian."

The real bias of 'Game Change'

"There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy." — PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, JANUARY 9 , 2009 With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.

Fiscal Phonies

Hidden unemployment numbers stymie Obama’s job growth claims

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:33 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (2)

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Thoughts On A Sunday
Once again winter has tried to reassert itself, dumping around 4 inches of snow here at The Manse early yesterday morning and greater and lesser amounts around the Lakes Region. BeezleBub fired up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower and cleared...

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When are you going to see Rush for what he's been all along: controlled opposition. He just single handedly lost the election and probably the Senate and house. He helped Clinton out of jams too. Distraction and outrage, the propagandist's tools. So go prattle on about how right "we" are, your ego is waiting. Played again.

#1 Philistine on 2012-03-11 09:16 (Reply)

Disagree with your first points, agree with your last point.

#1.1 Bird Dog on 2012-03-11 09:28 (Reply)

I disagree with asking 18-yr olds their sexual orientation. They are to young to make that commitment. When I was 18, I might have said, standing or vertical for my orientation and been very happy. But now, many years on, my sexual orientation has become far more prone, almost horizontal. Your back goes, you knees go, your partners give up their eating disorders, what 18-yr old can know comprehend the changes that will befall them.

#2 JKB on 2012-03-11 10:04 (Reply)

My thinking is that this is just a trial balloon. It is an attempt to get the public used to the idea before making it mandatory.

Favors and discrimination can be meted out based on sexual orientation. There is no other rationale for asking.

#2.1 feeblemind on 2012-03-11 11:39 (Reply)

I think it is intended to help university administrators assign incoming students to the "appropriate" housing arrangements based on sexual orientation. But if history is a guide, eventually it will be used to ghettoize heterosexual students and to shame "LBGTI-deniers" in yet another government effort to advance the social agenda of certain favored activist groups. The re-education of our college youth shall not be denied.

#2.1.1 Agent Cooper on 2012-03-11 16:03 (Reply)

Exactly, Agent C.

Finding "appropriate housing" means they intend to segregate them, right?

So if they are promoting segregation, aren't they discriminating against someone else?

It would be interesting to see the reaction if the rationale for "appropriate housing" was changed.

Suppose heterosexual students wanted them in separate housing because of their deviant behavior?

One wonders how quickly the administrators would find suitable housing under those circumstances?

Or would they come down on hetero students like a ton of bricks for their "hate' and "intolerance'?

#2.1.1.1 feeblemind on 2012-03-12 00:55 (Reply)

I wonder why Latin "died" as a common language.

Seems like it would have had enough cultural intertia to survive intact in forms closer to the original rather than morph so (relatively) quickly into Italian, Spanish, French etc. Especially in the Italian Peninsula.

I would guess that through much of the Empire, it was often more of a language of institutional presence and legal process than everyday speech, but given the centuries of Roman dominance and its cultural influence even beyond the Empire's borders, you would think pockets of pure Latin speakers would remain.

#3 T.K. Tortch on 2012-03-11 11:09 (Reply)

Not dead. Turned into all those Romance languages in the same way that languages have always changed.

It is also common for an earlier version of a language to be be preserved for historical and religious reasons. See Sanskrit, for example, or Old Church Slavonic, which is gone now but had an extended run even after people stopped speaking it.

#3.1 Assistant VIllage Idiot (Link) on 2012-03-11 20:53 (Reply)

Of course pregnacy is a disease just like obesity is a disease. Haven't you heard about the pregnacy epedemic that is effecting college coeds? If you even stand next to someone who is pregnant you can catch it. Naturally the cure is just like the cure for obesity. You catch obesity by opening your mouth and prevent it by keeping your mouth closed. You catch pregnancy by opening your legs and prevent it by keeping them closed.

#4 Ray on 2012-03-11 16:21 (Reply)

I'm not sure that the Afghan railroads are 100 years too late.
What the railroads are great for is overland bulk transport of bulk products. Such as mineral ores.
Lets consider Afghanistan:
- It is rich in mineral ores
- The extraction is easy, because the resource is relatively untapped
- There is plenty of labor that is extremely cheap compared to other resource-rich places
- If mines are set up, there is no economical way to get the minerals to markets abroad.

Now, elsewhere where there is quite a bit of solid stuff out of the ground to be moved, we like barges and railways. I think barges are a bit out of the question for most of Afghanistan. So railroads would seem to be the key here.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway didn't purchase the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad out of a fit of nostalgia. He did it because it is a profitable enterprise. Many people don't know that the USA has the best railway system in the world, and they don't know it because so much of it is invisible. The USA shifts more freight and more of a proportion of its total freight by rail than anywhere else. Rail is only passé for passengers -- except in the places where it could be economically viable (commuting on lines already amortized and intercity within 4 hours rail travel distance).

#5 Douglas2 on 2012-03-11 22:31 (Reply)

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Sunday, March 11. 2012

Sunday morning links