Thursday, March 29, 2012

ObamaCare's Defense...

Reader Doug S. passed along this gem: a simple recording of Don Verrilli, Jr. defending ObamaCare during the Supreme Court's oral arguments this week.  Mr. Verrilli is a lawyer, and the Solicitor General of the United States (an Obama appointee).



As many commentators have noted (contrary to the current liberal chatter), Mr. Verrilli is a superb and competent lawyer – he's not the problem.  The bad law (ObamaCare) he's being asked to defend is the problem...

Wind Map of the U.S...

A beautiful animated map rendering of winds in the U.S.  I had to try a few times to successfully load the site; I suspect their servers are being overwhelmed...

Sealand...

The amazing story of Sealand, a WWII relic in the North Sea that claims to be the world's smallest nation.  There's a tie-in with “data havens” (think Neil Stephenson) and other technological developments...

Moral Reasoning...

Cassandra at Villainous Company has an interesting post up on moral reasoning.  She quotes a few scenarios postulated by Steven Landsburg to illustrate just how challenging a moral choice can be.  A good, brain-engaging read...

A First Place!

Debbie and Miki ran in an agility competition this past weekend.  It was a three-day meet, and they ran twice each day.  On one of those six runs (the standard course on Friday, amongst 20 or so 16" jump height dogs), they took first place!  Miki is a Field Spaniel, a breed most agility competitors know for their inability to focus on the job at hand and their easy-going, unhurried approach to life (including agility competition, where speed matters).  They are pretty much the precise opposite of a Border Collie, the canonical agility champion.  For a Field Spaniel to take a first place against a big field of dogs that included all the usual suspects (breeds) for agility competition is a bit like an unmodified Volkswagen setting a new land speed record.  Here's that first place run:




Here are the other five runs over the weekend as well: here, here, here, here, and here...