1. Serenity Parenting. Going along with my previous post, “Sensible Parenting”, about Brian Caplan’s book “Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids”, this is a good quote from his book:

Once I became a dad, I noticed that parents around me had a different take on the power of nurture. I saw them turning parenthood into a chore—shuttling their kids to activities even the kids didn’t enjoy, forbidding television, desperately trying to make their babies eat another spoonful of vegetables. Parents’ main rationale is that their effort is an investment in their children’s future; they’re sacrificing now to turn their kids into healthy, smart, successful, well-adjusted adults. But according to decades of twin research, their rationale is just, well, wrong. High-strung parenting isn’t dangerous, but it does make being a parent a lot more work and less fun than it has to be.

The obvious lesson to draw is that parents should lighten up. I call it “Serenity Parenting”: Parents need the serenity to accept the things they cannot change, the courage to change the things they can, and (thank you twin research) the wisdom to know the difference. Focus on enjoying your journey with your child, instead of trying to control his destination.

2. Something Real, For A Change. An interesting article about the big recent changes in U.S.-Brazil relations.

[T]he ramifications of the changing relations between the two dominant powers in the western hemisphere will . . . make waves. It is likely in the 21st century that Brazil will join the group of countries Americans listen to and rely on the most, and the countries whose interests Americans take the greatest care to address. . . .

Brazilians have built the largest and best performing economy south of the US border in the hemisphere; the state of Saõ Paulo alone has a GDP larger than any Spanish-speaking South American economy. Their agribusiness in particular is world class. Brazilians have an immense capacity for hard and focused work. The evangelical revival sweeping across Brazil is creating a new Bible belt. . . .

Brazil is an old nation but a young power; it is likely to make some sudden and startling moves as it tests its new abilities and pushes the envelope. But as far as I can see, the major strategic interests of the US and Brazil are so closely aligned that cooperation between the two countries will be one of the building blocks of the new century. Brazil’s growing influence will tend to make its neighborhood and the world richer, more free, and more stable. It brings the experiences, sometimes painful, of a developing country to the high table of world powers; its instinct for “order and progress” (the slogan appears on its flag) dovetails very closely with what the United States wants to see in the world.

A post-racial United States and a post-Third World Brazil can get a lot done together as long as both countries think the relationship true and work to keep it on track. Things are by no means perfect — in Brazil itself and in the US-Brazil relationship; I’ll be posting about some the pitfalls as well.

3. The SETI Game. Maybe an explanation why SETI has not discovered any aliens yet:

When listening for signals from aliens, it isn’t enough to just point an antenna at the sky. One must also choose details like directions, angles, frequencies, bandwidths, pulse widths, and pulse intervals. Apparently most SETI searches assume that for a given signal power density, aliens would pick details to make it as easy as possible for us to detect their signals. So standard SETI searches are optimized for such easily-seen signals. Two excellent papers, published back in July, instead consider what sort of signals would be sent by “beacon” building aliens, who seek to create the maximum possible power density at any given distance away from them. . . . Such signals are quite different, and most of today’s SETI searches are not very good at seeing them.

4. Europeans as Middle Eastern farmers. Europeans likely descend principally from Middle Eastern farmers who moved into Europe about 10,000 years ago and mostly displaced the hunter-gatherers then occupying the continent.