Of course, I know you've often commented on my posts - I was in no way offended by your complaint about length, but I did feel the need to stand up for the Richard Epstein long-winded types.  It's better when you're as knowledgeable as Richard, of course!

Sorry, I was in the car all evening...

I'm not sure that we do control the business world.  After all, business likes subsidies and monopolies, and what is government good for but cronyism?  That's the problem - government promises favors, and everyone expects to get something.  Civil "service," especially the public sector unions, is the biggest crony of them all!

Hey, I thought that was one of my shorter essays!  :)

Looks longer because of the video.  But if you play it and start reading... you can just stop when the music ends and call it good.

I hope you all have a great time!  I am driving down to Idaho this evening to visit family.  Please gripe about the traffic and the terrible bumper stickers on my behalf, though.

What?? Dave is going to the Seattle meetup?!  The week that my family is traveling to Boise?  oh, what luck.

Was just about to say... I know we've had this discussion before, but I think at some point you are considered a different religion altogether, or a cult (literally speaking).  I think the Episcopal church has long been unitarian rather than Christian.  Obviously you don't know what individuals believe, but as an institution, I think it has gone far enough outside to be completely outside.

ha!  Sounds fun.  I notice JOALT was a bit camera shy - why don't you ask a nice waitress to take a proper family photograph, huh?

I don't really get what you're talking about....

Was I too late?  Yeti, you going to PM me or what?  ;)

oh, this is what I get for never having had a facebook account!  I joined pretty much immediately (well, not as a member until 2011).  :)  But only through association with NRO.  The comments at NRO were terrible, and I haven't really been back since.  I still like national review, but - maybe it is the intangibles, maybe it is because the editors here will publish me once every hundred posts, and rich lowry never would - Ricochet is just so much better.

Happy anniversary!  I made scones.  Anyone who wants one is welcome to swing by.

I remember when Pat Robertson expressed - with great sadness, for anyone who knows anything about the man - the possibility that our rejection of traditional morals, as a country, might lead (or have led) to less protection from God.

That isn't the way I think, but I certainly don't begrudge his speculation.  It was in a spirit of sorrow for a country that really has been steadily rejecting Christian morality.  What Pat says is - whether correct or incorrect - out of love for the country and its people.

And liberals flipped their lids.

But of course they feel no hypocrisy when they wish that "providence" had killed hundreds of people and laid waste to "middle america" as a lesson to get with the times and be more progressive.  This was spoken in pure hate.  But it's ok because that hate is directed at the right people.  Imagine if this had been an earthquake in SanFrancisco instead.

Par for the course, isn't it?

... and amy breaks the unspoken rule of advice columns by signing her actual name. 

why not:  always a bridesmaid, ugh!

sometimes it is comforting to know that objective morality is not a product of the democratic process.  It is ... despite popular election

Bring her up, televise it, let her squirm publicly.  Then don't threaten prosecution - actually prosecute and let her rot in jail.  We should have a zero tolerance for this nonsense.  If it happened under a republican president, there would be calls for her head on a platter.  That's fine, let's see her head on a platter, then.

In logic, it is the fallacy of the false choice...  (I think)

probably better put:  "if you don't like what happened at the IRS - and you agree that what happened is defined as 'profiling,' and that activity is indistinguishable from other things also broadly defined as 'profiling,' and that the IRS and law enforcement and military should all be held to the same standards even though their roles are clearly different - then, you're arguing that profiling is bad policy."

oh, ok, I see how that makes sense now.  Of course, they left out quite a few "ands."

... additionally, it wouldn't be only conservative political groups.  Note that of the 2 liberal groups supposedly "targeted," both had misleading names, making it sound like they were conservative.  At that point, the argument that there might be some legitimate purpose really falls flat on its face.  Unless, of course, it can be shown that only conservatives engage in politics.  hmm... I suppose that might make sense to the writers at slate.  Liberals just care about getting things done.  They're above labels and politics, right?

exactly.  IRS was NOT profiling.  They were attacking/harassing political opponents.  In order for a profile to be legitimate, it must be based on facts.   terrorism, jihad, muslims...  we are literally at war with a group of people who can be identified by their unique religion (which all of them share)... it is a common trait and therefore something by which a person can begin to form a real profile. 

what about conservatives indicates tax fraud?  absolutely nothing.  If it was supposed to be profiling, it wasn't based on any identifiable fact.  So of course it wasn't profiling - it was harassment.  Incidentally, if it went the other way, there would be greater evidence: how many obama cabinet members were tax frauds?  What do they all have in common?  ;)  Even that ridiculous connection is more real than any alleged "conservatives are tax cheats" theory.