Link Love 3

My immune system is for crap. I take echinacea, which probably helps, but does not prevent recurring colds, like I felt coming on last night. I'm trying Zicam to see if I can head it off.

Life with daughters: you get a shaving cut one morning and realize that the only thing to put on your chin are Stawberry Shortcake bandaids. No doubt, my students will be amused.

Sgt Raymond exegetes The Parable of the Talents.

Steve Sailer and Arnold Kling each ask, in different ways, can teh multicultural paradigm work when Muslims are involved? Short answer: no.

Yesterday I got into a discussion in the comment section of the Natalia Antonova blog. You can judge for yourself the relative strength of our arguments, but my point here is that, while defending her perspective valiantly, Ms. Antonova, as of this writing, avoided the snarkyness, ad hominen, and deliberate misrepresentation so common in such forums. I just thought that deserved praise.

Surely we could write a list of rules for fruitful and civil discussion on the internet:

Seek common ground. Try to find things your opponent says that you can concede. It will make you more credible on the subjects you disagree on.

Be humble. Don't assume that you understood your opponent perfectly. Be willing to ask for clarification. In the mean time, try to give what he says the most charitable interpretation possible.

Update: Ms. Antonova just summarily dismissed me from her blog. Maybe I don't know jack about how to have a civil and fruitful discussion on the internet . . . .