(no subject)

Сегодня приснилось, что получил e-mail от Карлсона kitya с просьбой выдать ему американскую визу на посещение Аляски. Я решил подробно ответить, пошел на пирс, чтобы никто не мешал, но тут налетел ураган Айк, вырвал из моих рук любимую лэптопину и утопил ее в океане. Сижу теперь на берегу, носятся вокруг меня доски, мачты, обломки кораблей, и мысленно пишу в жж, как мне сегодня приснилось ...

(no subject)

finished the third draft of the third chapter. will send it to the editor tomorrow. let her sweat.

p.s. mediation rules. breath in. breath out.

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McCain - 47%; Obama - 45%.

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Government statistics show that at birth there are 104 black boys for every 100 girls. Between ages 25 and 45, six more men than women are dead, leaving 98 men for every 100 women. Of these 98 men, nine are in jail, eight are missing and 21 are employed less than half-time. That leaves 60 "promising" black men - men who are alive, employed and not convicted felons. Also consider that promising black men living with a non-black partner outnumber white men with a black partner by three. That leaves only 57 black men for every 100 women in a position to be a permanent partner.
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The Accidental Constitution

I know way too little about American history.

Constitutional Convention is in some sense a coupe de tat, replace the Articles of Confederation altogether. Charles Beard's interpretation: somewhat malevolent conspiracy. Polling people at the time, no sense of national identity. What we create is the first large-scale republic in world history. Republics were small Swiss cantons or Greek city states. Presumed that a republic couldn't work over a large land mass. Consolidated republic. How did Madison make the case? He knows he's going to have to meet that historical argument. Goes on a cram session of classics and ancient history. Reads Adam Smith, David Hume; articulates argument in the Convention itself as well as in Federalist Papers. Instead of seeing size and scale as a problem or weakness, it is an asset or strength: if you increase the size of a republic, you increase the number of interest groups or factions, which will eventually cancel out one another, much in the way that the market place of Adam Smith is a series of competing interest groups that increases productivity.

The founding fathers not only appreciated the beauty of political deadlock, they built it directly into the system!

Podcast, transcript, and etc. here
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/09/ellis_on_americ.html