Another crop circle pattern.

This is one of the saddest things i have ever seen. The saddest part comes at the end.

When I showed this to Jeremy he said thats why you don’t steal. He just doesn’t understand. Restoring order must come second to letting people off the hook when their livelihood is at stake. It so sad cause this looters livelihood was crushed all because he broke the law. I cried for a full 5 minutes I was so sad. How much do you want to bet he starved to death because of what these soliders did.

This article details many recent examples of how free speech has been stifled at different universities. One might be tempted to characterize this as an example of left leaning folks attempting to stop free speech of those they disagree with. However, thanks to the impeccable logic of people like Darwin we know that politics has nothing to do with why certain (read: conservative) speakers are having a hard time expressing themselves on college campuses.

PS: I can guarantee this is an unfair characterization of Darwin’s position.

Old news. Nytimes and CNN were all over this story. Who would of thought Al Qaeda agents would be killed in Iraq. Shocker.

I certainly give thanks to having the good fortune of being born in United States of America.

If you are an American, you can start with having had the astounding good fortune to be born in the richest society in the history of the world; you had a better than 95% chance of being born somewhere poorer, and probably much less free. Someone making less than the American poverty line of $9,973 is still richer than roughly 85% of the people in the world. That should enable you to have a very happy Thanksgiving indeed.

Enable indeed.

It was a top story at both CNN and the New York Times.

As typical, Steyn lays out a strong argument:

So many of our present woes are due to thinking we know things. To our four Jills in the jeep, let’s add one Jim, apparently back at the steering wheel in the current war: James Baker, renowned foreign policy “realist” and the man Beltway wags are currently referring to as “the acting secretary of state.” The “realists” think that “containment” and “stability” are wise strategies. In fact, they’re the absence of strategy. The fertility rate in the Gaza Strip is one of the highest on earth. If you measure the births of the Muslim world against the dearth of Bishop Kate’s Episcopalians, you have the perfect snapshot of why there is no “stability”: With every passing month, there are more Muslims and fewer Episcopalians, and the Muslims export their manpower to Europe and other depopulating outposts of the West. It’s the intersection of demography and Islamism that makes time a luxury we can’t afford.

Bonus he talks about Scarlett Johansson back side.

While at work I listen to my Ipod. Frequently I will start singing along to the songs much to the annoyance of my coworkers. Most of the time I’m aware of it enough to keep my singing down to a murmur, but on an occasion or to have been told to shut it. Alarmingly, I have noticed that my singing in public has in fact expanded to just about anywhere I am. One might see me singing on the bus, walking to my car, or heading to the cafeteria. If I’m into my song I will at the very least be mouthing the lyrics if not quietly singing them. I elicit some interesting looks from those around me.

Oddly, I don’t like singing karaoke. This has become the source of much derision directed at me from my coworkers as they rightly see it as a contradiction. I think they have a point, in an inappropriate context, I will gladly sing out loud, however when I’m in a context where such singing it not only appropriate, but expected, I kindly decline.

I have given some thought to this apparent contradiction. The first thing that leaps to my mind is that I don’t like karaoke because it seems fake. If you ask me, the point of karaoke is to make a show for others rather than sing the song. I find this artificiality to be distasteful bordering on outright aversive. However, when I get into a song I find myself unwilling to sacrifice the ebullience arising in me simply for the sake of some social more. Stifling my ever so enjoyable experience on behalf of a social more simply to make face seems just as artificial as singing for the explicit purpose of putting on a show.

I bring this to other’s attention simply because I think it reveals something interesting. Variation as to when I’m likely to sing in public with a cursory glance seems to show a contradiction but with a closer is perfectly consistent. I trend towards having disinclination to all things artificial.

Over at personal repsonsibility Diatribe states:

I still have not heard one good argument against gay marriage.

The strong argument is an intrinsically anti-libertarian argument. It goes somewhere along the lines of having the state influence what kind of relationships it’s citizens should engage in. Arguably, the state has an interest in promoting heterosexual relationship for a variety of reasons but probably the most reasonable is because only through heterosexual relations are offspring produced. Thus, for its own survival, it’s in the state’s interest to provide infrastructure and incentives to encourage the citizens to produce offspring while at the same time find ways to discourage relations that will attenuate offspring production.

This kind of argument is very similar to the infrastructure argument used to justify the welfare system. It begins by arguing the state has an interest in insuring that all citizens have a fair opportunity at the wealth the country generates. There are a variety of reasons as to why this is desirable but probably the best one is that some citizens are in a socioeconomic position that makes it more difficult to succeed then rest of the citizens. Thus, in the interest of making sure all citizens have a fair shot at successes it’s in the states interest to take the wealth of those with the most advantage and use it to provide infrastructure and incentives to the most disadvantaged.

In one case we find that social liberals would argue its not in the states business to dictate what’s social relationships are acceptable while in the other case we find that fiscal conservatives would argue that its not in the states interest to redistribute wealth to rectify socioeconomic disadvantages. Oddly the social conservative would argue that its is in the states business to dictate social relationships while the fiscal liberal would argue it’s in the state’s business to dictate wealth distribution.

The libertarian is baffled by why people want the state involved in either of these matters.

There are some individuals who might take issue with the size of the header. However that fractal deserves full coverage so you can screw off.