In or Out

The sun can't seem to make up its mind - in or out. Otherwise a lovely day. The first part of this link-dump will be the customary politics. The general feeling in blog-world seems to be new boss, same as the old boss. Hijinks ensue. A third party would be nice, or more to the point, a real 2^nt party; one with grownup supervision.

• Big Brother: After flipping the script on Patriot Act reformists last year when he supported the extension of unconstitutional law enforcement provisions he once criticized, now he wants to broaden the amount of information the FBI can access without warrant for so-called counter-terror investigations.
• Too Big to Ignore: The Treasury Secretary and the FED’s extraordinary role as merger midwife for our troubled Corporate Financiers is extensively detailed, including their calls to foreign corporations and governments on behalf of our crumbling private corporations. I never thought I’d live to see the day that our Treasury Secretary or New York FED chairman would consider their job description to include managing the mergers of private corporations out of one side of their mouths as they muttered “moral hazard” and “too big to fail” out of the other.
• Ground Zero Mosque: If only - if only! - other people possessed my resolution, my ability to see everything as it really is. If only others could be as vigilant as I am. If only we could rid ourselves of the weak who fail to share my awareness of the peril we face. Well, then, victory would be ours! Instead, alas, we are on the road to defeat and thence to hell.
• Plug a Wikileak?: Second, for all the talk -- by the Chinese as well as outside observers -that they are not ready to lead on the international stage, they're doing it. On climate here and on climate during international negotiations, on currency adjustment, on economic reform, on Iran, on North Korea, they have led or been hugely effective behind the scenes.
• Answer to "End of Establishment":Several of my Shadow Government colleagues have already responded to Jacob Heilbrunn's obituary for the Republican foreign policy establishment. Most of the comments have focused on the diversity present on the Right on foreign policy and I agree with those assessments.

The next part is on the economy and by extention, the 'little guy'.

• Four Deformations of the Apocalypse: More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses.
• Let the Little Guys Get in on Pre-IPO: The hot IPO market of the 1990s, which allowed Regular Joes to buy stock in new companies, has been replaced by a rich insider’s club that trades in pre-IPO equity sales. The middle-class folks who daytraded their way through the dotcom boom are now locked out.
• Science and the Decline of the Liberal Arts: Our universities readily take credit for their Rhodes scholars and Fulbright award winners. What of those graduates who helped foster an environment of avarice and get-rich-quick schemes? Are we so assured that they did not learn exceedingly well the lessons that were taught them in college?

Re: the above. Science is not the problem. The humanities inability to differentiate between scientific and scientifical is. This might stem from their confusion between hot air and substance, or maybe show business and the real deal. After all, tempest in a teapot is a phrase most often applied to academics. As long as I'm treading on others turf, I may as well point out that there is a difference between education and inculcation. Science, at least in terms of its logic and method fall on the education side. So learn how to check the numbers, the toothy man on the TV may not have your best interests at heart. Enough: to end this is another article about (re)growing replacement parts and a science fiction book that has the Chinese government making cranky noises. (at least that's what the book's publicist says)

• Recipes For Limb Renewal: Bioengineers continue to refine prosthetic limbs, but they still can’t replicate the entire constellation of capabilities provided by flesh and blood. So a few determined scientists are pursuing a different solution: They are seeking the recipe for regrowing a missing limb.
• China 2013: A controversial novel marks the return of politically charged science fiction in China -- and evokes a decidedly mixed vision of the country's future..... In the euphoric Beijing of 2013, Starbucks is Chinese-owned and called "Starbucks Wangwang." Its trademark drink is Longjing Latté, named for a famed Chinese tea. It is a place where Mr. Chen, an immigrant from Hong Kong, feels comfortable escorting a marginalized woman named Xiaoxi, the secret love of his youth. After running into Xiaoxi in a Beijing bookstore, their first encounter in many years, Mr. Chen asks her whether she had gone abroad. "No," she replies.