Weekend's over

and our mini vacation here ends with it. Here comes the crap, time for shorters.

Politics, now with 50% more transparent pandering!:

So the conference I attended this weekend was on Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. It's a depressing book--sort of the "Gone with the Wind" of free market theory. And it flirts with a quasi-Marxist determinism about the onward march of History that turned out to be deeply, deeply wrong. But it has an interesting characterization of democracy, arguing in essence that we have outsourced our political leadership in much the way that we outsource the production of our food and clothing--that politicians compete for votes like Payless competes for customers, except that with shoes you actually have some idea whether you've got a good pair or not.

I could pick nits with Megan's idea that a teleological history is a Marxist idea, but I don't like Hegel, so I don't care that she and Jonah Goldberg have no idea what the terms left and right Hegelian mean.
What really gets me about this post is the non sequitur that follows. An Onion News piece on political bullshit, Megan? Granted, it might well be relevant in ways she has failed to explain, but how exactly has Payless outsourced its sales floor? There's one over on Graham Ave a couple blocks from me, and it doesn't appear to be a teleportation device leading to India. Furthermore, don't you have to have been born in the US to be President?

Amusing moment of the day: < Jeff Foxworthy voice > If you're a desperate student, and you email Megan asking her to do your homework for you, you might just already have failed the class. < / Jeff Foxworthy voice >

Let there be light: The imminent demise of the incandescent light bulb really shows you how Hillary is a liberal fascist.

Say what?: Isn't it great when Megan criticizes the work of others? It's like Andy Rooney telling old people to stop being so crotchety. Guns, it seems, are one of those topics which Megan likes to use to keep up her libertarian pretense. That her opinions seem straight out of the NRA blast fax of the day is sheer coincidence.

There is a lot of illogical drivel spilled on the topic of guns, but this particular piece seems to be gunning for some kind of award. The law, he admits, seems to be useless, and perhaps it violates the constitution; hell, maybe it disarms the law-abiding while leaving criminals armed. But what are these things, in comparison with the right of the people of DC to express themselves? Presumably if they wanted to express themselves by banning free speech, making us all wear uniforms, or burning witches at the stake, that too would be their sovereign right as The People, the standard-bearers of Democracy.

Or maybe she just plagiarized Michelle Malkin. Still, you have to love the logic behind comparing the treatment the "right" to bear the means to kill other people around you at will receives in a city wracked by gun violence (remember how you cry yourself to sleep every night thinking about the inner city kids, Megan?) to undoing the basic underpinnings of our society. How dare they be concerned about their own welfare like that? What are their lives worth compared to the satisfaction Megan gets from the theoretical ability to carry a concealed weapon?

Monday recipe-blogging: quick and dirty vegan food: One of the advantages of being tall is Megan has arms long enough to comfortably pat herself on the back with such ease she can do it over even the most trivial of things, such as cooking prepackaged food.

Nature vs. Nurture:

The bigger puzzle is why everyone is treating "natural" as a synonym for "good" or "right". Death in childbirth is natural; so is rape. These are not a good guide for either our behavior or our standards of living.

Y'know what else is natural? Love. Compassion. The instinctive need of a parent to protect their child. At least we know Megan is consistent in her rejection of anything natural.