Eric posts an interesting cartoon that critiques Socialist Capitalism or Buddhism.#

Will Baude writes about why some economists don't check the box to donate organs.#

I've known a few people-- peevish economists, I suppose you'd call them-- who refuse to altruistically check the "donate" box on their driver's license out of principle. The principle isn't that they're unwilling to help the needy, but rather that they want to take a symbolic stand to encourage the government to help the needy even more.

What I cannot fathom is why any government wouldn't be willing to pay a modest fee (perhaps remitting the driver's license registration fee) to those willing to check the "donate" box on his/her driver's license. As Alex Tabarrok has recently argued (convincingly, to my mind), you should be in favor of a half-market (paying donors, but not necessarily charging recipients) for the organs of the dead regardless of whether you're in favor of a full-market, and regardless of whether you favor markets for organs of the living.

Obviously there was a lot of discussion today about the President's trip.#

Will Baude writes about a better stunt that could have been pulled.

Not that the president's trying to win my vote, but I for one would have been much impressed if he'd done the whole trip without letting any cameras there at all, only telling reporters where he'd been when he returned, and telling them it wasn't a stunt at all and he didn't want to talk about it. Of course this reverse stunt would still have been a stunt, but it would have been an even classier stunt, and I'd like to see a little more class from our current President.

Atrios writes about the intense bravery of this move.

Count me as one who thinks that Bush's little trip is, on balance, a "good thing." I mean, it's better than him not doing it. But, what's with the press acting like, as Hesiod says, Bush grabbed a machine gun and personally stormed a building filled with armed insurgents?

He didn't meet with any locals. He didn't meet with the governing council. He flew into a heavily fortified military base and then flew out again.

Merde has the French perspective.

Happy Bird Day! On the TV news the anchor is in disbelief. Yeah, he did it alright. Bush went and showed solid support for the troops and as a bonus flipped the bird to his critics worldwide. The televised images of Bush in a war zone being heartily cheered on by the GIs do not sit well with the French. But what can you say, Bush isn't cut from the same cloth as France circa 1940. Bush has more balls than all the senior civil servants and all the scheming politicians (who have never worked a single day of their miserable lives for an honest days wages) who kick back and take it easy in this fast declining welfare state that still dares call itself a superpower

Jason Fried has the spin.

Secret, bold, and successful. Is there a better winning combination? Bush's surprise visit to Iraq to visit the troops on Thanksgiving was one of the shrewdest political moves in recent memory. This one is going to resonate. It scores big points in various ways:

[...]

Psychological blow to Al Queda and Saddam. It says "Our guy can come over to your neck of the woods, show his face, have a meal, greet his warriors, and leave peacefully. Your guys can't even show their faces in their own backyard." Note: Expect to see some Saddam and Bin Laden tapes in the coming days/weeks. They'll have to show their faces.

Michael Feldman writes about the other major visit.

In what WOULD have been the top international story of the day, Democratic non-candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton was in Aghanistan for Thanksgiving, giving thanks no doubt for the opportunity to visit an ally on the verge of falling victem AGAIN to American short-sightedness and the present administration's fixation on the Bad Boys in Iraq.

[...]

The President, not about to let the easily distracted national attention wander from his pet war front, responded with a secret lightning strike into the heart of Iraq, at least if you consider the George Bush Bagdad International airport the heart of Iraq. (see following story) So which story is the Major Media paying attention to? How about you?

Jon Husband quotes Michael O'Connor Clarke quoting John Jay Chapman.#

"I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard.

'In a few years,' reasons one of them, 'I shall have gained a standing, and then I will use my powers for good.'

Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought. His ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say.

I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always.

Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged.

The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time."

-- John Jay Chapman's Commencement Address to the graduating class at Hobart College in 1900.

If you're interested in Wiccan, talk to G.Girl.#

Dean Esmay writes about Faith and Politics and the lack of a budding theocracy.#

I think I'd also point out to Rev. Brill that the fear of imposition of religion appears to me to be an obsession with only a minority of people in the U.S. It's easy to get caught up in that fear when everyone you know seems to share it, but I think a lot of people are as unafraid of such a bogeyman as I am. Americans, in my view, always get the big issues right sooner or later. We've never been a theocracy, and are farther from one today than we ever have been--indeed, some of us think we've gone so far in the opposite direction it's getting downright psychotic.

I'll also point out that, as Rev. Brill rightly notes, both of our last two Democratic Presidents were very open and forthright about expressing their faith quite jubilantly and proudly in public. What I'll also point out is that Bill Clinton, in 1992, openly advocated an amendment to return voluntary prayer to the public schools. He, of course, won, and never recanted that view. Yet strangely, the raging fear of imposition of a theocracy was never a serious factor in his Presidency.

Frank Boosman studies the claim that President Bush counts like a dog because he said "not one, two or three, but a lot."#

The work published in Animal Cognition suggests merely that dogs can count to three. But the work published in New Scientist suggests that dogs can count to higher numbers -- up to the approximate size of a pack, if the researchers' hunch is to be believed.

In other words, if the Animal Cognition study represents the limits of dogs' mathematical skills, then yes, the President counts like a dog. But if the New Scientist authors are correct, then the President has a ways to go before he can count like a dog. A dog wouldn't say "...not x, but a lot," until x equaled 10 or 11.

Tom Coates writes about the process of weblog-writing.#

Writing for a weblog seems to me to go through cycles. At times, words just flow from your fingertips effortlessly. The quality of those words will generally be rather debatable, but they'll have a fluidity to them and an honesty or playfulness that at least partly compensates for their lack of substance. Normally with me, these periods gradually bed down into highly productive periods of good writing about things that I'm thinking about in greater depth - pieces of writing that I think have some greater utility or worth about subjects that I care about. Normally I've been thinking around these issues for a while but not had the mental discipline to drag them into a more coherent shape. During these periods, I do my best work.

Dave Winer links to On Beauty in Women from July.#

The inflight magazine view of the world is a lie. Nothing is like that. Don't measure yourself against that. And do what you enjoy, and what you can do, and then and only then will you be beautiful. And don't worry so much about the little things, even the ones that seem really big. The things you think are imperfect are the things that make you so pretty

And adds,

We have so much in common. We all feel unappreciated, and left out. No one likes being talked-down-to by others, but it's especially humilating when a member of the opposite sex does it. Women have so much more power today than they did in the past, but do they use it wisely? We're getting close to the end of a year, which means we're getting close to a new year. When we flip the page, let's try to create more win-wins and not be so picky about who we get help from.

When is Wendy going to get married?#

I had a great Thanksgiving. Lots of good people, people I really wanted to be with.

But like any big occasion with people who've known me my whole life, there was all this talk about when am I going to get married, when are my parents going to be made grandparents. This sort of talk doesn't offend me, but it does tend to make me a little bit sad.

It's not as though I don't want to find someone. I'm still not sure about the kids thing, as much as I love babies. I just don't know that I want a parent's life. But good grief, I'm looking for love! You, my dear readers, you know this. Tonight one person suggested online dating - I've tried that to disastrous ends, many times. I even tried Speeddating once. I don't want to meet anyone through artifice anymore. I want something real to happen.

Jessica on fact checking and Journalism.#

I let factcheckers who are verifying information related to my job know that they can come to me for assistance. I trust their judgment about whether something needs my verification. How do I reach the factcheckers that may not think about contacting me?

The system in place at TNR during the time the film covers relies on the journalist's notes for an integral part of the factchecking process. If a journalist has errors in his notes, then those errors could appear in the piece. It seems to me that a big piece of the system is trust: trust that the journalist took accurate notes and did not fabricate any part of what he covered and trust that the factchecker knows what to check and how to check it.

Caesar is on hiatus from blogging.#

Joey deVilla describes what he learned from Robert Scoble.#

If there are three things I have learned from his blogs, they are:

1. He really, really, really, really likes his tablet computer.

2. Longhorn is the codename of the next version of Windows, and it's got lots of new features.

But the point he's managed to really drive home:

3. There are 55,000 employees at Microsoft.

Madpony Sisters: Girls want to be them. Guys want to know them.#

Sarque, at All Those Zeros, writes about the meaning behind the Self-Reliance quote.#

This doesn't mean every thought is gold. Not every conviction you speak will resonate universally nor find even a small receptive audience. But if you don't watch your ideas for those that sparkle, then share or act on them, you're bound for disappointment.

While you're at it, cite your sources. It's a matter of courtesy and ethics. I haven't noticed an epidemic of missing citations among weblogs, but perhaps I tend to read those who do cite. I'm sure you only need to notice one chronic offender to be annoyed.