Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
An academic paper with a rather unusual history is that of the Israeli mathematician Ami Harten's “High Resolution Schemes for Hyperbolic Conservation Laws.” First published in the Journal of Computation Physics in 1983, it was republished in 1997 in the same journal, and is often cited with the later date. At the time of republishing …
Continue reading "Proof of Harten's Lemma re the Convergence of TVNI Finite-Difference Schemes"
And it's about to kill him: America's best-known public-opinion guru hasn't suddenly gone vegan. Luntz—the tubby, rumpled guy who runs the focus groups on Fox News after presidential debates, the political consultant and TV fixture whose word has been law in Republican circles since he helped write the 1994 Contract With America—has always been a …
In this case, the legalisation of marijuana, according to Rod Dreher: Opponents of marijuana among the elites are those who have maintained enough contact with Middle America — David “Bobos in Paradise” Brooks has this all over his résumé! — to realize that the experiences of élite urban Americans can’t be extended to all America …
Continue reading "What Works at the Top Doesn't Always Work at the Bottom"
Every New Year's Day, I try to get away from the usual run of topics and tackle something of longer-term interest. Last year it was gun control; the only thing that prevented this from becoming a larger player on our political stage was the ineptitude of the administration that wants to expand it. This year's …
Continue reading "I Do All the Talking, and He Does All the Thinking"
From St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, 3 q. 2 a. 6: ...we must know that two heresies have arisen with regard to the mystery of the union of the two natures in Christ. The first confused the natures, as Eutyches and Dioscorus, who held that from the two natures one nature resulted, so that they …
Continue reading "Taking the Middle Ground on the Union of God and Man"
Yes, a new gas tax can help our transportation system: The program is the federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays about half the yearly tab to build and maintain the nation’s roads, bridges and rails. At the moment, the loudest advocate for fixing it responsibly is a liberal Democrat, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.). This month …
Continue reading "To Fund Transportation, We Must Get Past the Shell Game"
AMC KS-7634 6052N8 (1976) A collection of classic Catholic folk pieces, most of which were written (and performed) by the Dominican James Marichonda, who is a well-known composer and performer of liturgical music. The album itself is a little uneven; there are some songs which are very good and some which are more ordinary. Nevertheless …
No, the original manger didn't have a fire alarm; this nativity scene was in the lobby of what was then the Church Ministries building of the International Offices of the Church of God, where I worked at the time. You can read our ministry's Christmas message at the time here; it's still very relevant.
Readers of this blog may remember that I did an interview with the legendary Abu Daoud almost two years ago. As is the case with my academic career (I'm both student and faculty at the same time) not only can I dish it out, but I can take it too: the current issue of Pile …
From The Orthodox Faith, III, 1: For by the good pleasure of our God and Father, the Only-begotten Son and Word of God and God, Who is in the bosom of the God and Father John 1:18, of like essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Who was before the ages, Who is without …
Positive Infinity 