The Warden

Jon Will’s gift

Wed, 09 May 2012 17:10:45 -0400

The day after Jon was born, a doctor told Jon’s parents that the first question for them was whether they intended to take Jon home from the hospital. Nonplussed, they said they thought that is what parents do with newborns. Not doing so was, however, still considered an acceptable choice for parents who might prefer to institutionalize or put up for adoption children thought to have necessarily bleak futures. Whether warehoused or just allowed to languish from lack of stimulation and attention, people with Down syndrome, not given early and continuing interventions, were generally thought to be incapable of living well, and hence usually did not live as long as they could have.

Department of Justice admits judicial review is legitimate

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:21:05 -0400

Department of Justice admits judicial review is legitimate:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., bowing to an unusual demand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, made official the backpedaling of the past few days over remarks by President Obama about the Supreme Court’s coming ruling on the constitutionality of his health care overhaul. Mr. Obama said on Monday that it “would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step” for the court to overturn the law.

The Kentucky-Yankee correlation

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:29:59 -0400

The Kentucky-Yankee correlation:

For those who don’t know, every time the University of Kentucky Wildcats have won the NCA A Men’s Basketball Championship, the Yankees have also gone on to take the World Series.

Some really nice additions to the Mountain Lion window. (via...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:04:06 -0500

Some really nice additions to the Mountain Lion window.

(via TUAW)

It's no longer just Peter Singer

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:24:00 -0500

It's no longer just Peter Singer:

Their answer, of course, is that the baby should not live—-he or she should be killed if his or her parents desire it because they feel his or her existence is a burden to them and will harm their well-being or the well-being of the family. It doesn’t matter to the authors whether the baby is physically and psychologically healthy. As a mere “potential person” (sound familiar?), the infant has no right not to be killed at his or her parents will. Of course, most parents of healthy newborns won’t be interested in killing them (though they should have the right to). But parents who find themselves with a newborn afflicted with, say, Downs Syndrome, might find the child to “be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole.” What if others are willing to adopt the baby so that he or she won’t be killed? Well, the parents might decide to give the child up, and that is certainly their right; but they may prefer to kill him or her, since they may find it psychologically difficult to have a child of theirs out there in the world somewhere.

[…]

Surely if respected philosophers were arguing for a right to kill members of a racial or ethnic minority group, as opposed to infant children, there would be denunciations from left and right alike. But the left’s having tied itself to the abortion license creates an obvious problem. Giubilini and Minerva, like Singer and Tooley before them, and like more than a few others in between, alas, really are simply following out the logic of their commitment to “abortion rights.” Or so it seems to them, and to me.

Emerging economies to challenge U.S. hold on World Bank

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:00:25 -0500

Emerging economies to challenge U.S. hold on World Bank:

Emerging economies said it was time to break a decades-old tradition that has long shut out candidates from the developing world and kept an American at the head of the World Bank and a European leader at the International Monetary Fund.

The problem emerging economies face is finding a candidate willing to challenge the United States, which is the largest and most influential shareholder in the World Bank and IMF.

(via The Freeman)

MLB will expand playoffs beginning with 2012 postseason

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:49:56 -0500

MLB will expand playoffs beginning with 2012 postseason

The ethics of Apple and Foxconn

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:37:00 -0500

The ethics of Apple and Foxconn:

A Chinese immigrant whose aunt worked for Foxconn wrote David Pogue about Foxconn’s factory conditions:

If Americans truly care about Asian welfare, they would know that shutting down “sweat shops” would force many of us to return to rural regions and return to truly despicable “jobs.” And I fear that forcing factories to pay higher wages would mean they hire FEWER workers, not more.

Anyway, now my aunt has been living in New York for one year after saving up money for a plane ticket and visa, and she is wonderfully happy to have escaped Asia and reunited with our family. None of this would be possible if it wasn’t for that “sweat shop.”

The “jobs” he refers to? Prostitution, which is what his aunt did before working for Foxconn.

White House budget director: Affordable Care Act does not include a tax

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:50:36 -0500

White House budget director: Affordable Care Act does not include a tax:

Which is problematic because, you know, the whole mandate issue is framed as a tax issue for constitutional purposes.

Mr. Zients: “Well, this is—” Mr. Garrett: “A moment ago you said there’s no tax increase.” Mr. Zients: “There aren’t.” Mr. Garrett: “So that’s not a tax?” Mr. Zients: “No.” Mr. Garrett: “That’s not a tax. Okay. I just want to be clear on that because that’s not the argument the Administration is making before the Supreme Court.”

NYC: Schools in churches, but no churches in schools?

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:48:49 -0500

NYC: Schools in churches, but no churches in schools?:

New York City does not want churches and other religious groups meeting in public schools because they are concerned that impressionable youth will be confused and wrongly think that the public school endorses the church meeting there on Sunday mornings.

So it greatly surprised me to learn that the NYC Department of Education rents Roman Catholic schools to hold public school classes. On Sunday morning, I learned about P.S. 133 in Brooklyn, a public school that meets in a Catholic parochial school building. I was so surprised to learn of this, that I walked over to the school to see it for myself. This building has large crosses extending from the edges of the roof, yet NYC public schools hold classes there for children of all faiths.

Jeremy Lin's non-recruitment

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:19:26 -0500

Jeremy Lin's non-recruitment:

Some coaches have wondered whether Lin, who is of Taiwanese descent, did not receive a closer look by recruiters because of his ethnicity. Coaches have said recruiters, in the age of who-does-he-remind-you-of evaluations, simply lacked a frame of reference for such an Asian-American talent.

Why we have /bin and /usr/bin

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:30:25 -0500

Why we have /bin and /usr/bin:

Late last week, I came across a link at HackerNews giving some intriguing insight into how /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, and /usr/sbin came to be. Many of you will be surprised to learn that no, there is no divine plan behind all this separation.

Drones and the "anxiety" of disincentives

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:17:15 -0500

Drones and the "anxiety" of disincentives:

Anxiety is not a policy. It might be and, I think, in this case is an admirable sentiment, and a useful way of focusing on the basic question of the use of force. But ultimately, having anxieties about the implications of one’s weaponry and one’s political leaders who make decisions about how to use it is not the same as actually making a decision about what to do. When anxiety has to give way to actually deciding whether to use a weapon, or whether to develop a weapon system, someone has to decide: is the possibility that political or military leaders might decide to unjustly to overuse a weapon a reason to not use the most precise weapon available to commanders? Or not to develop greater precision in the first place?

Electoral College scenarios for Gingrich and Romney

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:35:18 -0500

Electoral College scenarios for Gingrich and Romney:

Romney, were he the nominee, could potentially make this generic map even better for Republicans. He has no obvious weaknesses in any of the swing states, at least as measured by head to head polling, which we fully grant is not necessarily all that predictive at this stage. Also, he could potentially make some of the competitive states harder for Obama: he could mobilize the not-insignificant Mormon population in Nevada to help in that state and play off his relative home field advantages in Michigan (his father was governor of the state he grew up in) and New Hampshire (he served as governor of neighboring Massachusetts and has built deep bonds with the Granite State, which paid off in his recent primary romp there). In fact, if Romney were the nominee, we’d likely switch New Hampshire to “leans Republican” from toss-up. While this only represents four electoral votes, consider this: take another five Obama states that went for George W. Bush twice (Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia) and put them in Romney’s column, and then add New Hampshire and all of John McCain’s states, and Romney is president.

Unlike Romney, we don’t see any competitive state where Gingrich would potentially perform better than a generic Republican. And, based on polling and our own thinking about the individual state-by-state contests, at this point we think he’d do worse than a generic Republican or Romney.

Discipleship vs. evangelism

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:28:22 -0500

Discipleship vs. evangelism:

What’s more important? Reaching the lost or growing the reached? Over the past two weeks, the ongoing debate between discipleship and evangelism took center stage during one megachurch’s Code Orange Revival.

The SOPA and PIPA protests in numbers. (via Fight for the...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:48:47 -0500

The SOPA and PIPA protests in numbers.

(via Fight for the Future)

Iowa caucus recount still has issues, doesn't really matter anyway

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:09:39 -0500

Iowa caucus recount still has issues, doesn't really matter anyway:

So apparently Santorum did win the Iowa caucus. Maybe. Eight precincts’ numbers can’t be certified.

…

getting the caucus vote margin right down to every last vote isn’t really necessary. After all, the caucus vote doesn’t directly determine the number of Iowa delegates that the candidates will receive. Even if the caucus vote did determine delegates, no voting technology is going to make the process perfect. In fact, paper ballots and human counting might even be more accurate than more sophisticated kinds of voting technology.

Google, SOPA, and Citizens United

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:41:00 -0500

Google, SOPA, and Citizens United:

Interested, unorthodox perspective.

Today, Google’s U.S. query page features an anti-Stop-Online-Piracy-Act statement from Google. Say that Congress concludes that it’s unfair for Google to be able to speak so broadly, in a way that ordinary Americans (including ordinary Congressmen) generally can’t. Congress therefore enacts a statute banning all corporations from spending their money — and therefore banning them from speaking — in support of or opposition to any statute. What would you say about such a statute? Again, I limit the question to those who think corporations generally lack First Amendment rights.

(via John Samples)

Flickr's creative SOPA protest

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:32:16 -0500

Flickr's creative SOPA protest:

For a 24-hour period, starting today, Flickr is letting its members darken their own photos in an effort to raise awareness about the proposed, highly damaging legislation. But that’s not all – Flickr is going a step further, and will allow users to darken other members’ photos, too. Now that’s what censorship really feels like.

"These blocks are nothing. People adapt, as they’ve always done. They learn to use new methods, they..."

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:36:49 -0500

“These blocks are nothing. People adapt, as they’ve always done. They learn to use new methods, they discover new websites, they circumvent… Loads of money are thrown into lobbying and legal action and nothing else is accomplished but limitations to civil rights and preliminary structures for a police state.”

- Harri Kivistö