I've been busy recently and haven't had the time to blog much.

So, I thought I'd just enter a quick post with my thoughts on some recent events. These probably won't be very surprising.

Google and China: I don't see that Google deserves most of the criticism it has received for its google.cn site. Yes, it's somewhat restricted, but it isn't a tool of repression and people in China are better off with it than without it. Google seems to have carefully considered the ethics of the project and made a defensible decision that they should go ahead and pursue it.

Cartoons of Mohammad: Absolutely ridiculous reaction by rioting Muslims. They shouldn't expect others to conform to their rules, and they can't prevent others thinking badly about Islam by reacting like a bunch of idiots. I'm sure that many have been manipulated by those seeking to exploit this incident, but they shouldn't be so easy to manipulate.

Cheney Hunting Accident: I'm baffled why this was such a hot story. It's obviously unfortunate for those involved, but I don't think it tells us anything interesting about Cheney. Certainly nothing bad.

David Irving Conviction: Idiotic. Yes, he's a jerk and he made horribly wrong historical claims. But, open societies must tolerate the peaceful expression of unpopular opinions. His conviction belies the claims that the muslims who urged censorship of the Danish cartoons didn't understand the nature of european freedom of expression. They did understand it: Some "offensive" opinions are punished, and some aren't.

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers for winning their fifth Super Bowl.

It was a pretty good game.

There were some close calls, but I think most of the major ones were ruled correctly. Neither side played their best games, but I think the better team won.

I did think it was classy of the Seattle players that I saw interviewed to aviod the bait offered up to place the blame for their losses on the officials. They agreed that they made mistakes, and that the Steelers made more big plays and fewer mistakes, and deserved to win today.

I haven't commented on the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections because I wasn't sure how to interpret it.

Was it a vote for more extreme terrorism, or a vote against known corruption?

Will Hamas use its new power to expand its attacks on Israel, or will political and economic realities force it to moderate its positions, recognize Israel, and discourage terrorist acts?

What does this mean for the prospects of democratic reforms elsewhere in the Middle East?

Fortunately, we can read Natan Sharansky's opinions. He understands these issues better than most.

Some key excerpts:

No, the real difference for the Palestinians was that a Fatah-run Palestinian Authority was rightly seen as a corrupt and feckless organization that had done and would continue to do nothing to improve Palestinian lives, whereas Hamas was untainted by corruption and appreciated for providing real social services.

With the vote being a choice between corrupt terrorists dedicated only to themselves and honest terrorists who are also dedicated to others, is it any surprise that Hamas won by a landslide?

...

The world must base their support for this new regime on two ironclad conditions. First, Hamas must explicitly abandon the goal of destroying Israel and renounce terrorism. Second, it must dedicate itself toward building a free society for the Palestinians.

David Friedman is one of those people whose writing I love to read because he's really smart, and very talented at expressing complex ideas clearly, and controversial arguments persuasively.

The Machinery of Freedom is a classic, and a favorite of mine. I also remember enjoying reading his Usenet posts years ago.

If you haven't checked out his blog yet, then you should.

Today, he had pretty good post about unschooling.

I thought the President's speech was pretty good. But, maybe that's because I set my expectations so low.

I liked much of what he had to say (e.g. the war, Hamas, tax cuts, open markets, new supreme court justices, cutting failing programs and earmarks).

He did propose some new, stupid, spending programs (e.g. more government research on energy and battery technology, more school teachers, AIDS treatment), but they seemed more modest than the outrageous programs of past years.

I was disappointed by the foolish call for bans on research and trade related to human cloning, and embryos.

I guess Bush made it clear that he's steadfast about the war, recognizes that he now has less political capital to promote ambitious new programs, and still pays lip-service to the concerns of the religious right.

So, all in all, there was some good and some bad.

But, it could have been a lot worse.

The Super Bowl will be interesting for me this year.

I live in the Seattle area, and I'm a long-time Pittsburgh Steelers fan; so, this year's Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Steelers should be fun.

I admit that I haven't been following the game very well for the last few years (although I have been watching some Steelers highlights on Comcast On-Demand lately). But, I did watch both conference championship games today.

The Seahawks seem to have a pretty solid team, but I didn't see anything offensively or defensively today from the Seahawks that will match up well against the Steelers.

So, I not only want the Steelers to win..but I think that they will, too.

I've never been inclined to root for the home team. I'm sure it's partially because my dad liked non-home-teams; but, I also was averse to conforming to the crowds who blindly rooted for the local teams. It made sense to me to choose the team I preferred.

It still does.

I liked the Steelers of the '70s (Bradshaw, Swann, Harris, Lambert, etc.), and I like today's Steelers (Roethlisberger, Polamalu, Ward, Bettis, etc.).

Why should I root for a team that appeals to me less just because they happen to play closer to where I live?

I've been on vacation in Las Vegas for a week.

A couple of nights ago, my son and I rode the thrill rides on top of the Stratosphere tower.

We enjoyed some of the rides we'd ridden before (Big Shot, and X-Scream), but we really enjoyed the new (to us) ride: Insanity.

It's difficult to describe how exhilarating it is to be suspended off the edge of a 1,000 foot tower, and then spun around (at an angle) so that you can see the tower from the outside (as well as lots of other stuff way down there).

It was a blast.

If you're going to Vegas and enjoy thrill rides, don't miss Insanity.

There are many things about the culture of the United States that I'm proud of. But, the continued imprisonment of Jack Kevorkian is a source of deep shame.

I think that The World gets it right when they say that people denied the right to die, and now (ironically) Kevorkian himself, are being "ritually tortured to death."

And, all this is done under the cover of an avowed desire to promote a "Culture of Life".

What does it make more sense to respect?: Beating hearts, or the informed choices of people about how (and whether) to proceed with their own lives?

I've posted on this before, but I won't agree that we talk about it enough until these obscene laws are repealed, and people's right to make their own choices is upheld.

Ok, some of these "proofs" for the existence of God are unfair; but many of them are funny. And, many of them are very similar to things I've heard people say.

Apropos my post below, take a look at Christopher Hitchens' Christmas column in Slate. An excerpt:

Our Christian enthusiasts are evidently too stupid, as well as too insecure, to appreciate this. A revealing mark of their insecurity is their rage when public places are not annually given over to religious symbolism, and now, their fresh rage when palaces of private consumption do not follow suit. The Fox News campaign against Wal-Mart and other outlets—whose observance of the official feast-day is otherwise fanatical and punctilious to a degree, but a degree that falls short of unswerving orthodoxy—is one of the most sinister as well as one of the most laughable campaigns on record. If these dolts knew anything about the real Protestant tradition, they would know that it was exactly this paganism and corruption that led Oliver Cromwell—my own favorite Protestant fundamentalist—to ban the celebration of Christmas altogether.

No believer in the First Amendment could go that far. But there are millions of well-appointed buildings all across the United States, most of them tax-exempt and some of them receiving state subventions, where anyone can go at any time and celebrate miraculous births and pregnant virgins all day and all night if they so desire. These places are known as "churches," and they can also force passersby to look at the displays and billboards they erect and to give ear to the bells that they ring. In addition, they can count on numberless radio and TV stations to beam their stuff all through the ether. If this is not sufficient, then god damn them. God damn them everyone.

I just got back from my weekly secular humanist meeting where we're all conspiring to destroy religion by getting people and businesses to say "Merry Christmas" less frequently.

What a great plan, huh?

Too bad the really shrewd observers, like Bill O'Reilly, are catching on. But, I think it'll probably work anyway.

Gay marriages will destroy marriage, too.

I figure final victory is just around the corner. Maybe if we can get people to stop mentioning the Easter Bunny, the last traces of religion (and all other traditions, probably) will disappear forever.

Yeah, it's a good thing most people don't realize just how fragile their institutions are.

I went to a concert with my family Friday night (Lynyrd Skynyrd...very enjoyable).

After the opening band played, some roadies were setting up the stage for the main act. One of them had the task of cleaning up with a vacuum cleaner, and the lady sitting next to me commented about what a terrible job that must be.

Without too much hesitation I managed to come back with:

"Yeah, it really sucks!"

Looks like the Cato Institute has begun a new and interesting web site that will invite great thinkers to address big ideas.

In the first essay, Nobel Prize winner James M. Buchanan (the father of public choice theory) recommends three amendments to the Constitution.

They all seem like good suggestions to me.

Of course, Buchanan doesn't quite rise to the challenge of trying to write the amendments themselves.

I don't think any wording would be safe from determined politicians or judges, but some wordings would certainly work better than others.

I just came across this screedblog entry from a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently, Kurt Vonnegut was out promoting some anti-Bush essays and made comments described in an article as follows:

Vonnegut said it was "sweet and honourable" to die for what you believe in, and rejected the idea that terrorists were motivated by twisted religious beliefs.

If all you want to do is die for what you believe in then it's OK with me. Whether I agree about its being sweet or honorable would depend a lot on what, exactly, you believe in and how dying for it serves the cause.

However, these people are not merely dying for what they believe in. They are murdering for it. They are propelling nails into children. This is not honorable, and it's really not sweet.

There's also:

Asked if he thought of terrorists as soldiers, Vonnegut, a decorated World War II veteran, said: "I regard them as very brave people, yes.”

And

Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high". He said: "You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high."

Lileks responds appropriately. I particularly enjoyed:

Vonnegut is an addled old fool whose brain has rusted in the antiestablishment default position for so long he cannot distinguish between suicide bombers and people who stage a sit-in at a Woolworth’s counter.

One unforgivable (and inconceivable) error on Lileks' part is that he ends his post as follows:

Vonnegut is described in the article as a “peace activist.”

As a wise giant said in “The Princess Bride” – “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Of course, it wasn't the giant who delivered that line, but rather the Spaniard: Iņigo Montoya.

A commenter in one of the Volokh threads I mentioned below led me to Penn Jillette's "This I Believe" essay for NPR.

Go read and/or listen to it.

I believe Penn is awesome!