I'm in.

I like it that everyone is obligated to contribute to the offense; everyone bats. Everyone has to be alert on defense, for you don't know when the ball we be on you, and when it is, you have to execute correctly, fulfilling your responsibility. All very the essence of a democracy.

The generality of these comments don't apply to the commie, pinko, decadent, irresponsible, leftist American League, however.

Boswell's Life of Johnson

I don't understand current polling showing, roughly, a tie. Polls show independents going strongly for Romney when compared to 2008, sufficiently, by my back of the envelope calculations, to account for the tie.

Through in the apathy of many 2008 Obama voters such as young people, why is there a tie?

It was interesting how the audience spontaneously laughed when Romney quoted Obama about receding oceans and a healing earth. The pretentious, ludicrous  Obama claims are laughed at, not good for a someone needing to show seriousness of purpose in tough times.

And Eastwood, an actor, played the doddering, unkempt (he looked like his hair hadn't been combed when he got out of bed in the morning) old man with the wisdom of a life. Like Ann Coulter says, "I hate it when they don't get the jokes."

I've wondered if President Obama has ever had to make an argument before a skeptical Federal judge or a persuasive, forceful statement to  a jury. He doesn't seem to me to possess some fairly basic legal skills.

Compare his rhetoric to that of Lincoln's. Lincoln's speeches are often closely reasoned and sharply phrased, skills I guess that were honed in front of frontier juries. Lincoln's first inaugural is mostly a legal brief on why secession is unconstitutional.

 These skills are lacking in President Obama. Would you hire President Obama to be your advocate?

Bernardo

    Who's there?

Francisco

    Nay, answer me, and unfold yourself.

On blue collar jobs. In the oil patch (West Texas, South Texas, the Dakotas, Pennsylvania) you can earn $20.00 an hour, 80 hours a week, if you can drive a truck, pass a drug test and show up on time. If you know how to use a wrench or more sophisticated tools, the hourly wage goes up. A lot of similar jobs would be available if the administration wasn't slow rolling Gulf drilling permits and offshore drilling. Drilling requires many other blue collar jobs such as rig construction and pipe manufacturing, most of it occurring in the US. It only has to be rationally unleashed.

Reagan won the Presidency because the country was fed up with Carter and Reagan became acceptable considering the alternative. There was a lot of trepidation re Reagan in 80. He won 84 because of his success in his first term.

Reagan changed the terms of the debate in the country, economically, internationally, etc. He permitted the New Deal settlement to be questioned. The tea party could not have occurred in 80 and, I believe, could in 10 because Reagan made the arguments publicly plausible more than 20 years before. And a large part of the country absorbed them. Because the counter revolution was not completed in 88, doesn't mean it will ultimately fail. Reagan brought us a long way.

Rob's point re making the argument is critical. Current politicians, such as W and McCain and perhaps Romney, do not know how to make the argument and do not, perhaps, even believe forceful arguments are important. Christie does it very well, and so does Newt, mostly, particularly when he takes his meds. But it's a long slog and persuasion is critical. 

California Dreaming.

To quickly form a California corporation, the papers have to be walked in (which helps, I suspect, document filing firms like Legal Zoom, and, if so, requires a lot of people to be in California to do the filings). No wonder the Legal Zoom guy wants to keep his business, and his business model, in California.

In Texas, corporations can be formed over the internet in a few hours, complete with all of the ribbons and stamps. I love California and consider it my home (Go Niners), but the state is clueless and disingenuous.

I'm not sure about debates but do believe that inability to speak articulately, forcefully about issues has hurt Republicans and, in fact, hurt the country. I believe that Newt's surge has sprung from him being the best at clarifying the failings of the President and proposing alternatives. McCain failed to press Obama, and W, as much as I respect him, also suffered from an inability to be articulate.

One of Lincoln's many strengths was his articulate, close reasoning, in addition to his soaring rhetoric. These provided a moral foundation that sustained the country and still sustain.

Great, first reviews by David Berlinski and now David Kreps.

Models not only require an understanding of the mathematics, they also require an understanding of what the math is trying to capture and the interplay of various formulas. Dynamism, uncertainty, and ambiguity will make fools of us all, but they have to be engaged to be understood; the more intensely they are engaged, the better the insight and the better the necessary revisions will be.

That's life; suck it up.

Most of life is equivocal, and the wisdom of doing something is never a given. If you wanted a proof of the success of an action before you took it, you'd never do anything. Hitchens's argument is not directed to daily living but, probably, a dismissal of the Judeo/Christian tradition, a rationalization to dismiss those Claims.

We want to claim the rationality of our actions, that they somehow rise to a level of certitude. The Man of Galilee said "This generation is an evil generation. It seeks a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah." Luke 11:29. Rational behavior is much more than proofs, but proofs are one of our generation's current signs.

Less somber, Steve Jobs is quoted as saying "Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

Thanks, Claire, for ruining my Saturday morning work.

This needs to be a choir. Hasn't Jennifer read The Forgotten Man?

Rick Perry - Meh. I agree with a lot of the comments about him being a chameleon. I think that he reads the voters well and reflects them. 

There are a lot of moving parts to the Texas economic success. But one of them that's rarely mentioned is that it's pretty difficult to have a lot of debt on your house. Second mortgages were only recently allowed, but when you get one, total indebtedness on your house is limited to 50% of the fair market value. Those limits probably protected the economy from the down side of the real estate bubble.

Perry's advocacy of testing college classes by their economic result is disingenuous. How do you put an economic return on the classes taught by Professor Rahe, yet they are invaluable for broadening the mind and engaging life with insight. Perry's plan smacks of philistinism.

When someone says, "Do the math [or maths]," I'd usually be happy with adding subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Do the arithmetic. Seems appropriate for the current debt ceiling debate.