• Cogitamus: We Never Learn [cogitamusblog.com]

A little over 140 years ago the residents of the American south rose up and began brutally slaughtering thousands of their fellow citizens to defend a despicable system of slavery.  They chose to kill and destroy instead of recognizing that the tide of history had finally turned against them.  Yet the memory of these traitors and murderers is honored, the reasons for their crimes santized.

• The Case for Working With Your Hands [nytimes.com]

I was always sleepy while at work, and I think this exhaustion was because I felt trapped in a contradiction: the fast pace demanded complete focus on the task, yet that pace also made any real concentration impossible. I had to actively suppress my own ability to think, because the more you think, the more the inadequacies in your understanding of an author’s argument come into focus. This can only slow you down. To not […]

Most “knowledge” work is horrible.
• Empathy and the Supreme Court: God Agrees with Barack Hussein Obama version [delong.typepad.com]
Empathy appears to be a biblical qualification for judges.
• Eight questions for Jonathan Rauch | Democracy in America [economist.com]

I suspect a lot of bloggers may be introverts, because blogging is great if you like to sit in front of the internet all day. If not for my aversion to specialising in one subject, I probably would have been an academic historian, because I think it would have suited me to work in libraries back before there was an internet.

I’m not sure I buy his characterization of the Democratic party as pandering to its base. I could probably identify 5 hard-right Republicans in Congress for every hard-left Democrat.
• Mencken Speaks [metafilter.com]
• Legal Theory Lexicon: Virtue Ethics [lsolum.typepad.com]

This week, the Lexicon provides an introduction to virtue ethics.

• Decline of the Blue-Collar Man [andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com]

(by Richard Florida) The economic crisis is hitting hardest at working class jobs, and rates of male unemployment have skyrocketed. A commonly asked question is how do we retrain them for emerging job opportunities in other sectors. The Globe and Mail`s Margaret Wente suggests the problem runs a whole lot deeper than we think. The new economy (over the long term) is creating tons of service jobs in retail, customer support, and personal care. The trouble is that […]

• Money! Power! Ambition Gone Awry! A frank history of the big-time American lawyer [legalaffairs.org]
Depressing.
• News Flash: Taliban Waterboards Captured U.S. Soldiers–Claims “Not Torture” [balkin.blogspot.com]

According to reports out of Kabul, the Taliban announced that they have waterboarded three U.S. soldiers taken prisoner. The Taliban commander asserted that waterboarding is not torture and does not violate the Geneva Convention or U.S. law. He assured everyone that a medical officer monitored all waterboarding sessions to insure that no permanent damage was done to the soldiers. In addition, he said they were careful to follow the directions on waterboarding […]

• Obama’s Notre Dame Speech [lefarkins.blogspot.com]
Links to thoughtful liberal responses to Obama’s Notre Dame address.
• faux serious introspection [ordinary-gentlemen.com]
Thoughtful conservative responses to Obama’s Notre Dame address.

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