Monthly Archives: July 2016

Right, Then

Now that all the fuss is over, it’s time to relax a little. The lovely Nina and I will be here in the heart of Europe for another week or so, and may do a little touring around. After that is August, when this blog traditionally goes mostly silent for a summer break. I’m sure […]

Liam Brendan Wright

With his mother, our daughter Chloe, about an hour ago. A very happy day for us all.

Notes From Abroad

We’re still in Austria (and will be until the 6th). It’s hot over here, but from what I gather it’s much worse back home. It’s nice to be here — Vienna is, as everyone knows, a gracious and beautiful city. One of the first things you notice, though, is how unhurried it feels. In New […]

Service Notice, and Open Thread 18

The lovely Nina and I are off to Vienna this evening, where our daughter is due to give birth to our first grandson. Things may be a little quiet around here until we get back, in early August — though I expect I’ll put up a post or two from over there. If my tone […]

Duh

Over the transom today from our reader Henry is this piece by Thomas Sowell. The points it makes are utterly simple and obvious — and utterly at odds not only with our prevailing social orthodoxy, but with the stated policies of the Obama administration, and even the recent jurisprudence of our Supreme Court. How long […]

The Siege of Istanbul

I’m off to Vienna later this week; it seems timely. After the Turks were driven back from the heart of Europe, progressive modernism gradually expanded its range. The Sublime Porte’s senescence deepened — the shrinking Ottoman Empire began to be known as “the sick man of Europe” — and finally the unthinkable happened: the last […]

When You Strike At The King…

The coup in Turkey has failed. Naturally, Mr. Erdogan is consolidating his power, and is rounding up his enemies. The fog is still thick, though. Was it a false-flag job? Erdogan is blaming the exiled dawa jihadist Fethullah GÁ¼len — who, from his compound in Pennsylvania, leads a large and subversive faction in Turkey. Some […]

The Ankara Reichstag?

By now you have heard that there has been a coup attempt in Turkey. The situation is still chaotic, but it appears that in Istanbul at least, the coup is failing, with soldiers surrendering their weapons to police. President Erdogan was reported earlier to have left the country, but now we hear he is in […]

Mr. Nice Guy

Yet another jihadi massacre in France last night. Eighty-four are dead as I write; the number will rise. What can I say that I haven’t said before? Not to worry, though — the Huffington Post has the answer:   Yup, we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em. Some prayers, a hashtag or two, lots […]

Science!

Some science items for today: With race front and center in every news cycle, it’s good to be prepared for encounters with those who insist that race is “only a social construct” (many of whom also spend all their waking hours totting up accounts of how one race is doing compared to another). Readers of […]

The Problem

Scott Adams (a keen observer whom you may know as the creator of Dilbert) offers an interesting explanation as to why the Democrat-Republican dispute over gun control is so intractable: On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime. On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and […]

Obama Consoles A Grieving Nation

Absolutely shameless race-baiting and anti-gun demagoguery by Barack Obama today as he spoke in Dallas, ostensibly to mourn the racially motivated murder of five white police officers by a black assassin. What a crabbed and venomous man he is. What a pestilence he is on the nation he despises.

For All You Logolepts

With a hat tip to our man Mangan, here’s a little vocabulary test.

Race, Violence, and the Police

Despite more than seven years of enlightened rule by a saintly mixed-race President, race relations in America seem worse than ever. Celebrities take to the national airwaves to blame “whiteness” for all the world’s ills, and in particular for all the frustrations, disappointments, and social afflictions of everyone who isn’t white. Moreover, if you were […]

Comey Testifies

I watched with considerable interest James Comey’s appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. The reason, of course was his recent recommendation not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for: knowingly and intentionally using a private and unsecure email server to conduct State Department business, putting classified information on it (some of which was […]

You Owe Them Nothing

FBI director Comey has just given a statement on his agency’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified email. We read (my emphasis): Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified […]

Happy Fourth!

Here we are again: Independence Day! The future of the Republic is perhaps more uncertain than it has been at any time since the Civil War. To quote one insightful observer: More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total […]