December 25, 2020 – 2:03 pm
Merry Christmas, everybody! Sorry to have been so shtum lately; I seem to be in a kind of limbo, just busying myself with reading and musical work. I’m sure I’ll perk up soon.
December 24, 2017 – 4:24 pm
(Noel!) Merry Christmas, everyone.
January 31, 2024 – 12:08 am
With a hat-tip to our reader and commenter, the indefatigable JK, I offer you a detailed essay by Dr. Roy Spencer about climate modeling. (Dr. Spencer’s CV is here. Keep it in mind next time somebody tells you the scientific consensus among Actual Climate Scientists is “settled”.) One of the key ideas in this article […]
I wonder where this story is headed. (Commenter “JK”, call your office…)
I’ve been enjoying a respite from online engagement this summer, for reasons given in the previous post. Our daughter, her husband, and their three young sons (one is three-and-a-half, one turned six yesterday, and one is five months old) are staying with us, and the days are a noisy, happy chaos that leaves a bloke […]
February 23, 2022 – 10:49 pm
Sad news yesterday: Gary Brooker, the singer, composer, and pianist of the English band Procol Harum, has died of cancer at the age of 76. This was a particularly poignant passing for me; I’ve been haunted by his masterpiece A Salty Dog since the first time I heard it, more than half a century ago, […]
February 22, 2021 – 1:26 pm
Here’s Michael Anton (with whom, in 2018, we had a brief exchange in the linked series of posts starting here), writing recently at Claremont Review of Books: The vast majority of those who went to the Capitol did so without a plan, but they did have a goal: to be heard. Which was also the […]
November 2, 2020 – 12:40 pm
I am chastened by the discussion in the previous posts. (See here and here.) All I had sought to do in my original remarks was to point out the natural advantages of cohesion, compact unity, patriotism, faith, competence, and positive worldview that Red America has over Blue, and to suggest that whatever happens next, we […]
Here are two black voices that have very little chance of being heard above the din. Both are tenured professors at Ivy League universities: Glenn C. Loury of Brown, and John McWhorter of Columbia. (Given, by the way, that Brown University was founded on slave-trade wealth, and Columbia was named after noted unperson Christopher Columbus, […]
April 17, 2020 – 12:39 pm
Our reader the indefatigable JK has introduced me to a blogger I’d never heard of: B.J. Campbell, whose posts are collected under the title Handwaving Freakoutery. The post that JK sent me today is about the possible consequences for social order of this ongoing (and, increasingly, arguably unconstitutional) lockdown. It begins with an amusing roundup […]
In response to Friday’s post about the different emotional reactions of Democrats and Republicans to the Wuhan-virus pandemic, our longtime commenter, the indefatigable JK, posted a link to a thoughtful essay on the topic. I though it worth promoting to a post of its own, so here it is.
March 22, 2020 – 11:18 pm
I’m coming increasingly to the conclusion that our reaction to this Wuhan virus, if it keeps the economy comatose for any appreciable length of time, will do more damage than anything the disease itself might have wrought. On the more benign end of the scale, we have at minimum a crisis that has already been […]
October 27, 2019 – 3:24 pm
With a hat-tip to the indefatigable “JK”: Michael Flynn’s new attorney, the formidable Sidney Powell, has filed a devastating motion-to-dismiss in the distinguished general’s defense. It lays bare the disgraceful chicanery that the government engaged in to set him up — a sickening and abusive conspiracy, for political ends, by rogue agents in the Justice […]
August 25, 2019 – 11:58 am
Our friend and commenter, the indefatigable JK, sent along a link to a story that’s attracting lots of attention today: climate “scientist” and rent-seeking fearmonger Michael Mann has lost his libel suit against the Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball. Dr. Ball had expressed in public his belief that Dr. Mann’s infamous “Hockey Stick” graph — […]
March 28, 2019 – 12:15 am
In yesterday’s post I quibbled with Andrew McCarthy’s call, in an article he’d published at Fox News, for full disclosure of the Mueller report and everything else associated with the Russiagate witch-hunt. Today I listened to an interview he gave with John Batchelor on Tuesday, and I see that I had missed his point. As […]
January 17, 2019 – 9:54 pm
Magnificent. (Thanks to the indefatigable JK for the link.)
November 21, 2018 – 1:34 pm
In a recent USA Today opinion piece, the East Bay Democrat congressman Eric Swalwell proposed a mandatory government “buyback” of what he calls “military-style semiautomatic assault weapons” — i.e., ordinary semiautomatic rifles with scary-looking external features. (A gun “buyback” is when the government takes money from you in taxes, then gives you a little of […]
April 24, 2018 – 10:00 pm
Several readers have written to ask me to report on our visit to Austria last week. Mostly we were visiting with my daughter, her husband, and our little grandson, but we did get out and about a bit. Here are some thoughts and recollections. First of all, Austria still retains, as far as I can […]
February 27, 2018 – 3:29 pm
Our reader, the indefatigable JK, has sent along a column by David French about “gun-violence restraining orders”, or GVROs. Mr. French argues that they are a plausible compromise between the community’s collective interest and the individual right guaranteed (not “granted”, mind you!) by the Second Amendment. Mr. French outlines some limitations that would, in his […]
December 20, 2017 – 3:27 pm
With a hat-tip to the indefatigable ‘JK’, here’s a delightful video: Riccardo Muti on conducting.
August 3, 2017 – 11:18 pm
Here’s a savory morsel: a class-action suit, filed by Democratic voters, against the DNC and the gratifyingly beleaguered Debbie Wasserman Schultz for their conspiratorial malfeasance during last year’s primary season. Thanks to our indefatigable JK for the tip.
February 9, 2017 – 7:42 pm
With a hat-tip to the indefatigable JK, here’s an interesting little item: three Congressional IT staffers — brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan — may have been using their access to snoop.
“Coming down the stretch, it’s Cankles out in front — but wait, here comes Rule Of Law! Rule of Law pouring it on now! It’s anybody’s race!…” “Come on, Rule of Law! Move yer bloomin’ arse!!” With thanks to the indefatigable JK, here’s more on the Clinton investigation.
December 30, 2015 – 2:34 pm
This intercalary week is always a good time for a change of pace, and with all that’s been going on in the local physical world, I’ve hardly glanced at the computer for the past few days. (It’s been nice.) Even better, I’ve managed to pay almost no attention at all to the news. Finding myself […]
October 4, 2015 – 9:15 pm
The indefatigable JK has posted a link, in one of our recent comment threads, to an outstanding article that deserves promotion to the front page: an in-depth look at high- and low-trust societies and how they got that way. Read it here.
Here’s a good item, just posted to an aging comment-thread by the indefatigable JK: Why Does the Republican Party Exist? For some real political geekdom, read the last link in the article, on the highway-bill’s pension gimmick. Also just in from JK: this explanation of Donald Trump’s surging popularity.
Here’s a good post by Lewis Amselem, a.k.a. ‘Diplomad’, on race relations in the West. He begins: Let me be blunt: I find that discussions of race quickly get boring, idiotic, inconclusive, and, often, verbally and even physically violent. Race tells you very little if anything about a person and his or her attributes except, […]
From the indefatigable JK: a medical story that might be a pretty big deal.
February 21, 2015 – 1:02 am
From the indefatigable JK: video of a U.S. air-to-ground attack. Here. – Erratum: I had originally referred this as a “drone team”. Thanks to commenter El Gringo for the correction.
February 9, 2015 – 8:17 pm
Yet another round of painful periodontal surgery today. I’m too out-of-it to write much, or well. Some links, then: ‣ I’m going to have to get myself some of this, I think. ‣ 42 hours of Buckminster Fuller lectures. ‣ The St. Augustine Monster. ‣ Medieval Metallica. ‣ Charles Cooke […]
December 12, 2014 – 11:41 pm
Perhaps the silliest response to the Ferguson incident is one I’ve heard at least a dozen times, both publicly and privately: “Why didn’t the officer just wound him?” The speaker is invariably an Eloi hoplophobe who wouldn’t know a Ruger from arugula. It’s fatiguing. With a hat tip to the indefatigable JK, here’s Michael Yon […]
November 17, 2014 – 10:51 pm
Here’s a pungent analysis of the situation in Iraq from the ‘XX Committee’ blog. (Hat tip to the indefatigable JK.) Key excerpt: The U.S. military is quite capable of defeating almost any adversary on the battlefield, even Da’ish, though that is not the same thing as producing lasting political outcomes that Americans will like. This […]
September 12, 2014 – 2:44 pm
In trying to catch up on all the stories we missed during our August break, I’d be remiss not to comment on the malevolent Muslim entity calling itself the Islamic State, and what we should do about it. My view is not, in many respects, a mainstream one. That said, I’ll hasten to align myself […]
I’m working late tonight, so here are two items to keep you from going away empty-handed: a little item about map projections (sent our way by the indefatigable JK), and, to keep you up wondering about things, some very interesting reading about Benghazi, Syria, and ISIL. (As for the second item, caveat lector: I make […]
Courtesy of the indefatigable JK. Here.
January 4, 2014 – 11:37 pm
Here’s a little late-night reading to make you love your local Leviathan just a little bit more: an Obamacare threefer, and then an NSA nightcap. First, this was too much even for Sonia Sotomayor. Second, some number-crunching from James Taranto. Third, a little historical perspective from Jay Cost. Last, this comforting item by way of […]
December 19, 2013 – 11:52 am
With a hat tip to the indefatigable JK, here’s an item from Yahoo! Finance summarizing yet another unforeseen consequence of the grotesque and misbegotten Affordable Care Act. (The original story, from the Seattle Times, is here.)
December 12, 2013 – 11:49 pm
From the indefatigable JK, a link to yet another story of swaggering government overreach and unintended consequences. A sage once was asked: “Master, what is wisdom?” “Good judgment.” “And how does one acquire good judgment?” “Bad judgment.” Unfortunately, this process works for people, but not democracies, where those who make the bad judgments never pay […]
October 23, 2013 – 5:05 pm
The indefatigable JK sends along this item, with the comment “Good thing they raised the debt ceiling in time.” This is OUR MONEY, people.
September 23, 2013 – 10:33 pm
Here’s a Cold War scheme I’d never heard about, until our own JK sent me this link: a Saturn-like ring around the Earth, made of little copper wires.
September 5, 2013 – 10:12 am
I was all set to put up a link to today’s NightWatch analysis, but noticed that the indefatigable JK beat me to it in a comment on our previous post. Here it is again, nevertheless. I haven’t selected any excerpts to reproduce here — I urge all of you to follow the link and read […]
February 18, 2013 – 3:08 pm
Reader JK sends along a provocative item from ABC News. The gist: the soldiers who were shot at Fort Hood by the jihadist infiltrator Nidal Hasan have been denied various benefits, including the Purple Heart, because the Defense Department refuses to define the shooting as an attack by an enemy combatant — preferring instead to […]
December 19, 2012 – 1:53 pm
When America’s leftward “progress” encounters friction nowadays, we are told to have a national “conversation”. What is meant by the word “conversation” in this sense is something like: “the conservative opposition will now listen quietly and attentively, whilst enlightened liberals lead them through a long-overdue course of reeducation and rehabilitation. They may then speak, so […]
November 26, 2012 – 5:03 pm
A great sage once hoisted a glass and made the following toast: “Here’s to Alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” With thanks to the indefatigable JK, here are some further details.
October 27, 2012 – 10:39 pm
With a hat tip to the indefatigable JK, here’s the latest on micro-drones. When I was at Singularity University this past April, a recurring theme was that the coming ubiquity of tiny, cheap and efficient sensors will soon have a seismic effect on the technological, and therefore the human, landscape. We like to think that […]
October 18, 2012 – 10:04 pm
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama did a little standup comedy at the Alfred E. Smith Dinner tonight. Have a look. I’ve seen the President cracking wise before, but never Mr. Romney. I have to say, he was downright Carsonesque.
With a hat tip to reader JK: In 1970, a Zambia-based nun named Sister Mary Jucunda wrote to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, then-associate director of science at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in response to his ongoing research into a piloted mission to Mars. Specifically, she asked how he could suggest spending billions of dollars on […]
With a hat tip to hbd chick (and to reader JK as well), here’s a little test: how well do you know Sunni from Shia Islam? The British, meanwhile, are soon to be experts. Paul Weston explains.
January 25, 2012 – 10:24 am
With a hat-tip to the indefatigable JK, here’s something new about to make its debut: the Tata MiniCat. Not what you want for traversing the Interstate system, but perfect for getting around locally — and cheaply.
December 27, 2011 – 8:20 pm
We’re on something of a holiday schedule this week — so for tonight, just a grab-bag of little diversions: — An item that, if it were a post of its own, would surely have been titled “Bird Brains”, or perhaps “Counting Crows”. — A little hibernal music from the late Jackie Gleason. — For you […]