Iran, travel, PR, health

[mindstalk]

* Dissident Iranian cleric Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has died, and this is proving a focus for protests. Retrospective on his life; blog on his funeral and protests.
* Israel used to take organs without asking. Bit foolish given the blood libel history.
* SCOTUS law clerks increasingly polarized. Apparently law schools are seen as "overwhelmingly liberal".

I'm going to take my chances flying to Spokane this year. Hopefully this flu-like thing (third sickness this term, wtf) will blow over soon. Anyone want to drive me to a 10:10am flight Thursday the 24th, for $25? The shuttles are suboptimal.

* Quotes in favor of proportional representation
"[legislatures in the United States] should be an exact portrait, in
miniature, of the people at large, as it should think, feel, reason, and
act like them." -- John Adams
"... the portrait is excellent in proportion to its being a good
likeness,...the legislature ought to be the most exact transcript of the
whole society... the faithful echo of the voices of the people." --
James Wilson at the Constitutional Convention


* Editor of libertarian magazine Reason prefers French health care.
* US health reform timeline over the decades

When people (Jared Diamond) talk about the Americas not having had many domesticable species, why don't bison and wild rice count?

Comments

[phoenix-hawk.livejournal.com]

Law School overwhelmingly liberal? Horsecrap. It had a very balanced perspective there, and I ran into as many conservative or libertarian professors as I did liberal ones.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Sounded odd to me. But perhaps you just lack the correctly enlightened perspective. :p

[phoenix-hawk.livejournal.com]

Also: best of luck in Spokane! I'm on the other side of the state, unfortunately >_

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Where I'm sure the weather is much nicer...

[slow-war.livejournal.com]

Diamond argues that any species which is domesticable eventually is domesticated - he discusses the unsuitability of a couple specific cases such as sumpweed, but in general is satisfied that any species that was never domesticated must have been unsuitable for domestication.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I know. OTOH, bison are sort of domesticated now, and I know various people (via James Nicoll) who think poorly of Diamond for various mis-citing of references reasons.