I’m back in town briefly, but having got home after midnight from a 13-hour day at work, I have no time for writing. But…
Remember our piece a while back about the “Monty Hall problem”? Well, reader J. Kapok has now sent along a dispiriting item about the relative mathematical capabilities of people and pigeons. Here.
We’re off again shortly. Back to normal next week.
Related content from SphereStarting tomorrow morning, I will be traveling a fair amount for a week or so, and things may be quieter than usual around here.
For tonight: an essay from Mark Alexander on the Second Amendment case now making its way through the Supreme Court. Here.
Also, there is a new website, Alternative Right, that has been attracting a fair amount of attention in the conservative blogosphere. I haven’t had a chance yet to look it over, but here are some discussions of it, over at Mangan’s and at Reflecting Light.
Meanwhile, in a hopeful sign of a long-overdue cultural awakening, the Dutch political party PVV, led by the increasingly popular Geert Wilders, has just won some decisive political victories in Holland — though you’d never hear about it by reading the Times. More than anyone else in Europe right now, Mr. Wilders is, to borrow a favorite phrase of the Left, “speaking truth to power” — and for daring to speak his mind about the existential threat posed to Western Europe by Islam and unchecked immigration, he is under indictment on what amounts, effectively, to a Sharia-charge-by-proxy of blasphemy against the Prophet. The government’s shameful persecution of him may be beginning to backfire, though, as the PVV now seems to be attracting widespread support, and is on the march. Learn more here.
Related content from SphereThe big political question at the moment is whether the Democrats will try to force their health-care bill though Congress using a procedural shortcut called “budget reconciliation”. This parliamentary loophole was put in place in 1974 for the sole purpose of making it easier to legislate the many adjustments that go into harmonizing a budget bill amongst various committees. When it began to look as if the new procedure would be routinely abused, it was braced against such misapplication by a set of rules introduced by Senator Robert Byrd in 1985.
Orrin Hatch wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post yesterday excoriating the democrats for considering this option to pass their health-care package. (You can read it here.) Here’s a wee sample:
This use of reconciliation to jam through this legislation, against the will of the American people, would be unprecedented in scope. And the havoc wrought would threaten our system of checks and balances, corrode the legislative process, degrade our system of government and damage the prospects of bipartisanship.
Less than a year ago, the longest-serving member of the Senate, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, said, “I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget ‘reconciliation’ process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health-care reform . . . legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted.”
For his trouble, the liberal TV host Rachel Maddow gave Mr. Hatch an earful on her show last night. (You can see it here.) She did not mince words, and said many times, quite without equivocation, that Mr. Hatch was lying. (Not “mistaken”, or “being misleading”, mind you, but lying.) She listed, as evidence of his hypocrisy, all the bills that Mr. Hatch had helped to pass using reconciliation. There were more than a few, although Ms. Maddow seemed not to notice that they were all, arguably, exactly the sort of bills that the reconciliation procedure was intended by its creators to apply to, unlike the one presently at hand.
Apparently the feud has now spilled over into Twitter, if you are interested in following that up. (I’m not.)
So who’s right? Seems to me that both may be overstating the case a little, but my own sympathies are with the conservative opposition, as readers will already know. I realize, of course, that statecraft occasionally requires taking a principled stand in defiance of transient popular passions, but in this case the bill is so bad, the expansion of government so egregious, the tactics so underhanded, and the general sentiment of the polity so willfully disregarded, that I rather find myself hoping that the Democrats attempt this brazen ploy, fail spectacularly, and are gutted at the polls in November.
It would be nice to be able to cite some utterly impartial authority as regards the competing claims made by Mr. Hatch and Ms. Maddow, but so polarizing is this health-care business that disinterested parties are hard to come by. But if you would like to read an in-depth examination of the matter from someone who can speak with “unimpeachable” authority on matters of Congressional procedure, Newt Gingrich — the former Speaker of the House, and himself an enormously polarizing figure — today issued a detailed essay on the matter, peppered with informative links. Have a look here.
Related content from SphereSmall changes in the relative timing and rates of growth of an animal’s parts — a concept called heterochrony — can make an enormous difference in the adult animal’s morphology. For instance, crabs and lobsters are built of essentially the same parts, but in the development of a crab the carapace broadens quickly, while the abdomen grows slowly, while in the lobster the timing is reversed. These differences may require only tiny changes in the genome, but can have big results. A similar source of variation is neoteny, which is the retention of juvenile features in the adult. (Indeed, we modern humans are a good example of that, with our big heads, small jaws, and hairless bodies.)
It seems clearer and clearer that much of the diversity in the living world is due to little variations in important rules, and to tiny adjustments of powerful control systems. Now a group of researchers at Harvard have advanced our understanding by teasing out, from a study of — what else? — Darwin’s-finch beaks, a powerful mathematical generalization of morphological variation, with only three parameters.
Here.
Related content from SphereAmphibian populations have been declining sharply for years now, around the world. An item in today’s Science Daily suggests that the cause may be a enormously popular weed-killer, atrazine, which apparently “chemically castrates” most of the males that come into contact with it, and turns the rest into females.
You can learn more here. (I will also take this opportunity to pre-empt any waggish comments about how handy a jug of this stuff might be on a Friday night.)
Related content from SphereHere’s an interesting item: Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson claims to have demonstrated conclusively that playing shoot-’em-up video games “increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior.”
This is, of course, what various concerned sorts have been saying all along, although I had for some reason thought that the idea had been shown, generally, to be false. These games are hugely popular, and are the focus of an enormously profitable industry, so you can bet that the usual battle lines, easily predictable and tiresomely familiar, will soon be drawn.
I have no expertise whatsoever to bring to bear here — all I can say, from my own wholly unscientific sampling of the phenomenon, is that I used to play a fair amount of Doom with my son Nick when he was a boy, and he turned out to be as amiable a fellow as you could ever hope to meet.
Whenever there’s a new result in the social sciences, can some new laws be far behind? Indeed, the good professor is already looking forward to some benevolent social engineering:
The researchers conclude that the study has important implications for public policy debates, including development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce the harmful effects of playing violent video games.
“From a public policy standpoint, it’s time to get off the question of, ‘Are there real and serious effects?’ That’s been answered and answered repeatedly,” Anderson said. “It’s now time to move on to a more constructive question like, ‘How do we make it easier for parents — within the limits of culture, society and law — to provide a healthier childhood for their kids?’”
Ah yes, those pesky limits. Well, in the meantime, Dr. Anderson has some advice for anxious parents:
But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies. And until then, there is plenty parents can do to protect their kids at home.
“Just like your child’s diet and the foods you have available for them to eat in the house, you should be able to control the content of the video games they have available to play in your home,” he said. “And you should be able to explain to them why certain kinds of games are not allowed in the house — conveying your own values. You should convey the message that one should always be looking for more constructive solutions to disagreements and conflict.”
Geez, I dunno. When a bunch of those Hell Knights pop up out of nowhere, I’m pretty sure I’m still going for my BFG. Let Satan sort ‘em out.
Related content from SphereAs you all know, the global-warming community has been under a great deal of pressure lately. Its Pontifex Maximus, Albert A. Gore, published a lengthy riposte in the Times today. You can read it here.
It is about what you would expect: a reminder that even if the scientific claims of the global-warming industry are wrong, it shouldn’t matter, because the things they want us to do are for our own good anyway; some hand-waving about the objections lately raised by skeptics, and assurances that the subjects of those objections — which include such things as the CRU scandal, the disappearance of primary data, the unreliability of the latest GISS report due to the removal of many of the reporting stations from the data set, and a great deal more — are negligible trivialities; an insistence on referring to carbon dioxide, which we exhale with every breath, and which Earth’s food-chain depends on for its very existence, as a “pollutant”, including a metaphorical comparison of CO2 to feces; castigation of the media as pawns of scurrilous corporate and conservative interests for not serving as compliant propaganda outlets; characterization of public skepticism and free debate as “hatred and divisiveness”, and so forth.
But what stood out above all was this:
From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.
Well, that certainly puts the cards on the table. This is perhaps the clearest expression yet of the liberal worldview as a kind of secular religion, in which, having rejected the prospect of salvation through God, we must instead achieve salvation here below, by becoming Divine ourselves.
Al Gore, then, is the Redeemer. If we will just come to our senses, smite the unbelievers, and place the flaming sword of Justice in his hands, we shall all be saved.
If you had any lingering doubt that this man is a dangerous megalomaniac, this ought to settle the matter.
Meanwhile, the inquiry into the Climate Rearch Unit’s malfeasance continues. Here is the memorandum just presented to Parliament by the independent Institute of Physics.
Related content from SphereHere’s a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America:
The sovereign extends his arms over the whole society; he covers its surface with a web of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls are unable to emerge in order to rise above the crowd; it does not break wills but softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces men to act, but constantly opposes itself to men’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from coming into being; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it presses down upon men, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and it finally reduces each nation to no longer being anything but a herd of timid and industrious animals, whose shepherd is the government.
I have always believed that this sort of regulated, mild, and peaceful servitude, whose picture I have just painted, could be combined better than one imagines with some of the exterior forms of liberty.
Now read this.
Related content from SphereAfter working all day, teaching class this evening, staying after to practice a little Iron Wire, trudging home in a blizzard, and shoveling the walk and stoop, I’m whipped.
So for tonight, then, here’s a pungent little rant about the sorry state of my former homeland, from Mark Steyn.
Related content from SphereIn a post over at VFR, Lawrence Auster comments on an essay by Stanley Fish in which Professor Fish remarks on the inability of pure “secular” reason, bereft of normative bedrock in the Divine, to provide any “oughts”. This is catnip to Mr. Auster, who is, despite having various admirable qualities, a crusading anti-Darwinist.
The argument made by both is that if the world is, as secular-humanist types are inclined to suppose, an elaborate causal clockwork and nothing more, then it is inconsistent for us to speak, in any context whatsoever, in normative terms. In their view, if I, a Darwinist, say something like “I really ought to get this sutured up” or “you shouldn’t fire that thing in the house”, I am being dishonest; I am “smuggling” in a teleological stance that is inconsistent with my metaphysics.
What both fail to grasp is that they insist upon a false dichotomy: that teleology either exists in the world absolutely, at the level of metaphysical bedrock, or it doesn’t exist at all. What they cannot, or will not, do is to consider the possibility that purposes can enter the world as an emergent property, or by-product, of living systems. This view is of course unavailable to Mr. Auster, given that the only mechanism yet proposed by which such emergence can occur is the one first described by Darwin — but it should be accessible, I should think, to Dr. Fish.
Related content from Sphere
lich: southern dialectal survival of O.E. lic “body, dead body, corpse,” cognate with O.Fris. lik, Du. lijk, O.H.G. lih, Ger. leiche “dead body,” O.N. lik, Dan. lig, Goth. leik, from P.Gmc. *likow.
Related content from SphereAs far as nifty gadgets go, it would be hard to top the computerized anti-mosquito laser cannon we showed you a few days ago. But a German tinkerer has certainly come up with an impressive little toy. Video here.
Related content from SphereThere’s a lively chat going on over at Mangan’s about how people react to the growing body of data about the diversity of various human groups with regard to IQ and general intelligence. That such differences actually do exist is at this point uncontroversial amongst those who study psychometrics, but it is of course a radioactive topic in public discourse; in Guns, Germs, and Steel, for example, Jared Diamond ruled it off-limits as a “loathsome” explanation for the differential success of various groups. That human groups vary in conspicuous ways is a plain fact — nobody would have any trouble, say, sorting out a mixed group of Afars and Inuits, no matter how thoroughly you jumbled them up — but to suggest that long-separated populations, developing in very different environments, may have systematic cognitive differences as well is to violate a strongly defended taboo. And by making such a suggestion, no matter how sensible it may be, or how well supported by evidence, one invites the nastiest sort of opprobrium. (Indeed, I have no doubt that some of you are forming dark, excommunicatory thoughts about me as you read this.)
Related content from SphereA week from tomorrow begins the Jewish festival of Purim, which celebrates the success of the Jews living under the ancient Persian Empire in reversing a plot to annihilate them.
The tale is told in the Book of Esther, also known as the Megillah. Summing up briefly:
During a feast, a drunken King Ahasuerus [likely Xerxes] commands his wife, Vashti, “to show the people and the princes her beauty” (by dancing naked for them, this is generally interpreted to mean). She refuses. Ahaseurus, wrathful, and concerned as to the precedent this will set, gets rid of her, and there Vashti’s part in the story ends. The king, seeking a new wife, then has an assortment of fair young virgins gathered before him, and selects one named Esther. Esther is in fact a Jew, whose real name is Hadassah; she calls herself Esther so as to conceal her true origin.
Related content from SphereHaving got home rather late from teaching class, I’ll leave you this evening with a brief but truly uplifting item: about the implementation, finally, of a technological fantasy I’ve been entertaining for decades.
Seriously, this is outstanding. Have a look here.
Related content from SphereI’ve been so busy of late spewing vile, reactionary, hate-filled, racist poison (or simple common sense, depending upon your point of view), that I have neglected another topic of critical import and urgency: butt-ugly deep-sea fishes.
No longer. Tonight I invite you to contemplate the stupefyingly unlovely Psychrolutes marcidus, known to bathypiscophiles the world over (you know who you are) as the incomparable Blobfish. Here he is:
Related content from SphereWe note with sadness the death, at age 57, of Doug Fieger, leader of the New Wave rock band The Knack, who had an enormous hit back in 1979 with the song “My Sharona”.
I got to know Doug (and even met Sharona!) back in 1981, when I assisted in the mixing of the band’s third album, Round Trip, at Power Station Studios. I never saw him after that, but you get a good sense of what a person is really like during the long and confining process of mixing an album together, and I will say that Doug Fieger was a very likeable fellow indeed. I’m sorry to hear he is gone.
You can read his obituary here.
Related content from SphereIn an article just published in Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria argues that sympathy for al-Qaeda, and for the most extreme forms of terrorist jihad, is diminishing throughout much of the Muslim world — due in large part to al-Qaeda’s violent excesses against Muslims themselves, particularly in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Certainly the relentless campaign by the West to deny them safe haven since 9/11 has been an important factor as well.
Certainly a welcome trend, for what it’s worth. Read the article here.
Related content from SphereIt’s TED Time again. Most of the current talks haven’t been posted as videos yet, but a few of them have. Here’s one that shows what Microsoft is working on for Bing Maps.
Related content from SphereWhen singers sing, or players of string or wind instruments sound a note, they almost always apply some vibrato — that familar effect in which the pitch is varied slightly, and rapidly — if the note is to be held for long. It is particularly unusual (in modern times at least) to hear singers who don’t do this, and when they don’t it has a tense, unsettling effect. I was just listening to some Chet Baker an hour or so ago, and it dawned on me that part of the haunting quality of his singing was that he used very little vibrato. (Even he didn’t avoid it altogether, though.)
Related content from SphereIn the essay linked to in our previous post, historian Gerard Alexander discussed the opinion, common amongst liberal critics, that Republicans lack the temperament, or perhaps even the basic intelligence and necessary habits of thought, for focused, critical examination of complex social, political, and philosophical issues. We are pleased tonight to offer a devastating counterexample, which ought to lay to rest any doubts about the intellectual qualifications of America’s conservative leaders. Here.
Related content from SphereOnce again it’s been a busy few days, with little time for brooding and writing. For now, then, here’s an essay that has been making the rounds for a week or so: Why Are Liberals So Condescending? It’s by one Gerard Alexander, who teaches politics at the University of Virginia. In it he identifies, and analyzes, four aspects of the withering contempt with which liberals regard conservatives.
Related content from SphereWell, whatever Iran had planned for today appears to have been a bit of a fizzle, at least as far as a “blow” to the West is concerned; indeed even the link I posted yesterday appears to be down. Any heavy blows were apparently reserved for the political opposition, and delivered by the Basiji. Don’t be deceived by the lack of breaking news from the region, though: big things are afoot.
Having got home late tonight I haven’t enough gas in the tank to write much; although it’s tempting, of course to comment on todays front-page story about blizzards and global warming, it seems that climate scientist Patrick Michaels over at Planet Gore has already beaten me to it. The point that is becoming abundantly clear is that we have now reached the point where any atmospheric phenomenon whatsoever is construed as evidence of anthropogenic global warming. (Unfalsifiable claims are at the heart of all religions, and this one’s no exception.)
So for tonight, then, some “shameless filler”: the most unusual campaign video you’ve ever seen. Here.
Related content from SphereTomorrow, February 11th, is the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. According to this item at Iran’s Press TV website, the Dear Leader — no, wait a minute, I mean the Supreme Leader; I always get these totalitarian Axis Of Evil types muddled up — has an anniversary present to give us. Should be fun.
Related content from SphereMany years ago I read a haunting short story (I believe it was called As Never Was, by P. Schuyler Miller), about a curious possible aspect of time-travel. In the story, which I recall only vaguely, there was a museum that sheltered a celebrated artifact: a strange and marvelous knife that had been brought back from a time in the far future when civilization lay in ruins.
The twist was that it turned out that the shattered building in which the knife had been found was in fact the wreckage of the very museum in which the knife was being displayed. In other words, the knife’s existence consisted of a loop in time: a strange circular path in which the artifact itself had no apparent origin.
Physicists refer to this as a closed timelike curve — and as preposterous as it may sound, it is far from clear just what, if anything, would make this re-entrant life-history an impossibility. A reader recently sent along a link to an engaging little article that explores some of the implications of this strange idea; you can read it for yourself here.
Related content from SphereAn article in today’s New York Times describes frustration amongst black activists over what they see as insufficiently preferential treatment from the President. Here’s an example:
On Capitol Hill, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have expressed irritation that Mr. Obama has not created programs tailored specifically to African-Americans, who are suffering disproportionately in the recession. In December, some of them threatened to oppose new financial rules for banks until the White House promised to address the needs of minorities.
“I don’t think we expected anything to change overnight because we had an African-American in the White House, but the fact still remains that we’ve got a constituency that is suffering,” said Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland. “I think he could do more, and he will do more.”
Well, maybe he will, and maybe he won’t. Apparently the problem, at least in part, is that this President negelects his duty to educate the people (I’m still looking over Article II for this one, but it must be in there somewhere, I guess):
Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University sociologist and longtime supporter of Mr. Obama, is exasperated. “All these teachable moments,” he said, “but the professor refuses to come to the class.”
Yes, I’m sure all of us feel short-changed in this respect. It would be nice if Professor Obama could find the time to lecture us more often. We know so little.
Related content from SphereIran is playing a very dangerous game at the moment, and they are raising the stakes simultaneously on several of their wagers. First, they have now announced that they are planning, despite recent conciliatory remarks, to proceed with the enrichment of nuclear fuel to near-weapons-grade levels (well, 20 percent isn’t 90, but it will mean they can get there much more quickly). In this they are gambling that China and Russia will provide a sufficient counterpoise to thwart any Western pressure for international sanctions (it was Russia, after all, who provided the fuel rods, for the Bushehr reactor, that make this enrichment program possible, and relations between China and the US have been disintegrating rapidly in recent weeks). The US has been tight-lipped about this latest act of brinkmanship, but meanwhile the Fifth Fleet and the Israeli Navy are said to be preparing various options in the Gulf.
Second, Iran has been airlifting medium-range surface-to-surface missiles into Syria, presumably under the terms of a new agreement signed by the Iranian and Syrian defense ministers Gen. Ahmad Vahidi and Gen. Ali Habib. The purpose of this latest pact between Syria and Iran is, as always, to strengthen the encirclement of Israel by their proxies Hizballah and Hamas. To this end Syria lately delivered to Hizballah a shipment of mobile-launched, highly lethal Fateh-110 missiles, which can carry a half-ton warhead 150 miles, putting all of Israel’s principal cities within range from Lebanon.
These developments are, of course, worrisome to all in terms of the general stability of the region, but to Israel they present an immediate mortal risk. It is therefore hard for me to believe that they will not act, and soon. What this will mean in terms of US involvement is far from clear, but at the very least I should expect that the Navy will not stand idly by.
I think there are probably a lot of people in Washington and Jerusalem who aren’t getting much sleep right now. Maybe a few other places too.
Related content from SphereIn Holland, the parliamentarian Geert Wilders is on trial for speaking his mind about the acute existential threat posed to European culture by Islam. Mr. Wilders — who believes, correctly, that Islam is at its core an explicitly totalizing and expansionist ideological system that is utterly incompatible with fundamental Western principles, and therefore should not be welcome in Western societies — is charged with crimes of offensive speech, not only for his public utterances, but also for his brief movie Fitna, which juxtaposes images of disturbing manifestations of Islam with quotes from the Koran.
It is hard to believe that the once-proud Dutch people, now cowering before their ascendant Muslim masters, have fallen so far as to be willing to prosecute one of their own members in what amounts to a sharia blasphemy trial by proxy. But there it is: there in the dock stands the brave Mr. Wilders, under indictment, in his native land, for speaking out in its defense. It is sickening.
Despite the enormous importance of this case, which threatens the single freedom that guarantees all others, the trial has received scant coverage here in the States, and shamefully, next to no editorial comment. The court has just postponed further proceedings until July at the earliest; there was nary a peep about any of it in any of the major news sources.
Others are watching, though. The National Review has just published a little symposium, to go with the International Free Press Society festschrift we mentioned in an earlier post . And if you like stronger stuff, well, here’s Pat Condell.
Related content from SphereIn the Andaman Islands are several small and long-isolated human populations, including one that is, as far as I know, the most isolated human group of them all: the few hundred people living on North Sentinel Island.
One of these populations, as of last week, no longer exists. The last of the Bo-speaking subtribes of the Great Andamanese culture, a woman named Boa Sr (don’t ask me how to pronounce it), has died at the age of 85 or so. The language, which represented a chain of cultural transmission that may have been as much as 70,000 years old, has died with her.
Read this poignant story here. Don’t miss the audio clip.
Related content from SphereI have had very little interest in all the fuss about the circumstances of President Obama’s birth. I’m certainly not hoping, as some people seem to be, to have the man pitched out of office on a Constitutional technicality; if nothing else I hardly think it’s in anyone’s interest to have Joe Biden running the country.
But despite my disinterest in this as a political issue, I must admit the story of Mr. Obama’s origins is a curious one, and an article I read today raised a possibility I had not heard anyone mention before.
Have a look here. Be sure to look at the photos.
Related content from SphereRecent correspondence has called back to my attention a perfunctory little post from last April, which despite its brevity led to one of our longer and more entertaining comment-threads. Here.
Related content from SphereA commenter here recently said: “Wake me up if Charles Krauthammer ever gets anything right.”
As I mentioned in the previous post, the Kafkaesque trial of Geert Wilders has been postponed while the schedule is worked out for the testimony of the few witnesses he will be allowed to call. It appears the trial will not resume until July at the earliest.
A discussion of all this is underway at View From The Right, here.
Related content from SphereYesterday the judge in the free-speech trial of Geert Wilders ruled that only three of the eighteen witnesses Mr. Wilders had hoped to call to testify about the true nature of Islam will be permitted to appear, and must do so behind closed doors. There may now be a long delay while these appearances — by Hans Jansen, Simon Admiraal, and Wafa Sultan — are scheduled.
This is a strategy that will likely backfire in the larger court of Dutch public opinion: Geert Wilders is easily the most popular public figure in Holland right now, and his persecution in this show trial, by a craven government already on its knees and fumbling for the jizya, is going to be a political victory for him no matter how it ends.
There is now a website devoted to news about the trial, here: http://www.wildersontrial.com. And as always, the clearinghouse for news about the Eurabian resistance movement is the steadfast Gates of Vienna.
Related content from SphereRoger Kimball shares a few thoughts about Howard Zinn. Here.
Thoughtopsy: in which you try to determine what the hell you could possibly have been thinking.
Hats off to Sarah Palin. While others are bickering about trivial superficialities — health care, the economy, and other inconsequential distractions — Ms. Palin has seized upon an issue of genuine substance: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s characterization of certain Senate liberals as “f***ing retarded”.
Now some will say that this is a niggling point, and that there are other, more pressing issues that dwarf this petty faux pas, but I can certainly see why Ms. Palin has her Irish up over this. Words can hurt, and it is shocking for a man in Mr. Emanuel’s prominent position to display such callous disregard for the feelings of the nation’s congenital imbeciles. Indeed, given that Mr. Emanuel is the President’s “right-hand man” in his dealings with Congress, one would have to be some sort of brain-dead vegetable not to see that this sort of insensitivity could leave Mr. Obama a political cripple in future negotiations (and of course, to have his proxy speak so carelessly, and so damagingly, must be particularly galling to someone as articulate as Mr. Obama). Criticism of the President’s judgment is already heating up, and a mis-step like this is sure to throw another faggot on the fire, blackening his reputation even further — especially with those members of his base who already see him as something of an Indian-giver for having welshed on so many of his campaign promises. The last thing the President needs is to expose another chink in his armor while his his political opponents continue to nip at his heels.
Make no mistake about that Sarah Palin! She may be out of politics for the moment, but she’s still one heap tough squaw, and she’s on the war-path.
Related content from SphereThe military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has been in the news lately. President Obama wants it repealed. I agree, though I disagree with him as to why.
Related content from SphereI’m slowly recovering from whatever it was I had — some sort of virus, I suppose, that triggered a general shutdown of major bodily and cognitive subsystems. Between that and a slip in the snow Thursday morning that caused fresh and debilitating damage to a recent orthopaedic injury, I have spent most of the past few days in a vegetative state. But now the generators are cautiously being brought back on line, the grid is beginning to hum, and the lights are slowly brightening again. Thank you all for your comments and emails.
I’m still a bit woozy, though, so for tonight, some “shameless filler”: a most extraordinary piece of email that appeared in my inbox earlier today. Here’s the text, in full:
blat
[link removed]
Good evening, Alphonse!
Thus the assurance in My note. Then feel the wrath of Satan! Suddenly Zane was choking. That is all. It had him now. Recall their mighty deeds! He could toss in a bomb.
Here is the place behind the ear. But with an accent. The stallion leaped into the sky. Jacob looked them all over to see. He was worried. There are your pension papers. After a while.
The air molecules were agitated into glowing. The Drusus was ready to spring. Tompetch had no idea what it was. Then it was all over. Atlan began again. Bink was last to go. Might as well start there. What can I do for you? Then Tompetch screamed in terror.
It is against anybody learning the truth. How are you going to do it? Bink gave it no chance to think. Fij-Gul felt relief. They were on Wanderer. He was terribly confused by it all. That’s the way I like it. Worse and worse! The landscape on the vidscreen sank past.
Below this haunting fragment was an image of an attractive couple straining to increase their tribe. The picture bore a hortatory caption:
Show your girlfriend what a real sex is!
ORDER CIALIS
I feel there must be some hermetic meaning, some occult semiotic payload, in this mysterious communiqué — but like poor Tompetch, I have no idea what it is.
But hey, that’s the way I like it. Worse and worse!
Related content from SphereI’m rather under the weather at the moment. Back in a day or two.
Having absorbed much of the commentary on President Obama’s speech last night, I have nothing to add here that hasn’t been said already by all of the usual bloggers and pundits. I will second a few thoughts though.
First, I thought the president seemed oddly unfazed by recent events. He certainly wasn’t ill at ease; indeed he seemed remarkably relaxed and confident — even, at times, downright cocky. (An affectation of his that I am finding harder and harder to bear as time goes on — the Mussolini-style chin lift — was in play throughout.)
He made several gestures toward the Right, mostly involving taxes. They are welcome, if sincere. I was also gratified to see him mention nuclear power, which should be an obvious candidate if we are serious about clean, independent energy.
He finally mentioned the health-care debacle, after about half an hour, and he did so in a way that I thought was either utterly delusional or deliberately offensive. He made no acknowledgement whatsoever of the many reasons that intelligent, patriotic citizens opposed the bill — its cost; its gross expansion of, and concentration of power in, the government; the scandalous way the votes were bought, etc. — but rather blamed himself only “for not explaining it more clearly to the American people.” This is not only insulting — he suggests that the only way anyone could object to his scheme is not to understand it, and that Americans citizens are so dense that despite his hundreds of speeches and press releases the problem was that they still needed more of his patient tutelage — it is also worryingly unmoored from reality. Many observers lately have been saying this is a sign of enormous (and possibly pathological) narcissism, and I will not hasten to disagree.
He also seemed, for all his calls to bipartisanship, unwilling to mend fences with the Republicans, choosing instead to berate and provoke them.
Perhaps the most startling moment was his castigation of the Supreme Court for their recent decision in United Citizens v. Federal Election Board — which was not only bad form (and his hesitation and ad-libbing at that moment showed, I think, that he knew he was about to behave badly), but also factually inaccurate, as Samuel Alito was quick to point out in a muttered objection that has been replayed continually all day today.
I really haven’t much more to add. In short, nothing much seems to have changed in Mr. Obama’s mind, though a great deal has changed all around him; I don’t think this speech did much to calm the waters. We’ll just have to see.
Related content from SphereWe note that the left-wing polemicist Howard Zinn has died, of a heart attack, at the age of 87.
Professor Zinn, in whose eyes the United States of America was clearly the focus of evil in the modern world, was a familiar sight in my adopted hometown of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where he was lionized by the town’s sizable part-time population of aging red-diaper Progressives (as is his friend and fellow-traveler Noam Chomsky, another longtime resident). I imagine the black bunting is going up already along Main Street; I have a feeling I’ll be spending the summer trying to contain myself.
Related content from SphereIt is remarkable how well natural systems can find minimal solutions to mathematical problems. Years ago I was shown, in a simple demonstration, an impressive example.
The problem was this: given several cities on a map, how can one lay out a minimal network of roads connecting them all?
To give a simple example, if there are three cities forming an equilateral triangle, the minimal solution is to find the point in the middle of the triangle, then build three roads from there, one to each city. But as more cites are added, the solution gets much more complicated, and when there are dozens or hundreds, finding an optimal solution (it’s called a Steiner tree, after mathematician Jakob Steiner) can be very time-consuming indeed (it belongs to a class of problems known as “NP-complete”).
Related content from SphereAs depressingly as our once-virile American culture may be fettered and enfeebled by political correctness these days, over in Britain things are far, far worse. Below the fold we have an illustrative comparison, courtesy of a Mr. D. Duff, from across the pond.
Related content from SphereLast week NASA announced that the decade just ended was the warmest on record. I was a little surprised by that, because everything I’d been reading — including the Climategate material — seemed to indicate otherwise; indeed the inconvenient lack of warming this decade was starting to turn into a real marketing headache for the burgeoning global-warming industry, and its affiliated political movement — both of which must of course keep up appearances if the gravy-train is to stay on the rails.
Of course, as we have already understood, warming by itself is not enough: the Earth has warmed and cooled throughout its long history, and was doing so, of course, long before we showed up. In order to get the big payoff, not only does one have to demonstrate warming, one also has to demonstrate that it’s all our fault (and furthermore, that we ought to care). But one thing’s for sure: without some juicy, incriminating pictures up front, the whole racket goes bust.
But there it was: a new report from NASA, saying in no uncertain terms that they had the goods.
Well, of course they might be right: for all I know, maybe the Earth has been getting warmer in the past decade. But given how profitable the operation is, and what scurrilous machinations have already been exposed, I had a sneaking feeling that there might be more to the story.
Lo and behold! Astonishingly, it appears that there is. Have a look here.
Update: with a hat-tip to our friend Mike Zaharee, here’s more.
Related content from SphereIt’s been a busy Saturday, and what time I’ve had for writing today I have spent commenting here and elsewhere, rather than on the gestation of new posts. So, it being late, and with my computer on the fritz (a new one is on the way), I’ll just leave you with this amusing recent story from the Times, in case you missed it.
Related content from SphereIt is of course ungentlemanly to gloat, but were I that sort of person, today’s doings on Capitol Hill would have provided a rare opportunity. The Democrats today are routed, their fearsome assault repulsed, their Utopian schemes undone. Their mighty socialist war-machine lies in splinters on the battlefield. Their armies broken and scattered, they keen and lament in abject disarray. On the horizon is the glint of steel, and the thunder of hooves.
Is this a great country, or what?
Related content from SphereThis is a story that keeps popping up: the potential health hazards of the electromagnetic fields our appliances and infrastructure bathe us in. A reader sent along a good example today, which you can read for yourself here; if the danger described in this article is real it is a worrisome matter indeed.
The problem for me in this case is that I just don’t know enough to determine whether stories like this are legitimate cause for concern, or sensationalist scare-mongering. The idea that rapidly fluctuating electrical fields might have unintended biological effects certainly seems plausible enough, and so essential are all our electronic devices to the modern world and its economy that there are obviously strong incentives to look the other way, and for interested parties to suppress such findings in various unscrupulous ways.
I suppose I should start reading up on all this. How I wish there were more hours in the day.
Related content from SphereSometimes, from the ashes of a liberal, a realist — dare I say a conservative — is born. It happened to me years ago, and it is happening across America right now. It gives hope.
To see the process in action, read this fine post by my friend Danny Fisher.
Related content from SphereIn Holland tomorrow, the trial of Geert Wilders begins. The world will be watching to see whether Europe is still to be a place where free people can speak out in defense of their besieged homeland and culture, or whether the battle may indeed already be lost. The International Free Press Society has organized a Festschrift in Mr. Wilders’ behalf.
Related content from Sphere