Who claims victory?

What is also appalling is that this lurid item is what I’m passing along today from Bill’s exceptional website; in particular he has just written a set of three pieces on the “illusion” of free will (here, here, and here) that are far more worthy of comment.

But so swamped have I been with work the past couple of days that I’ll have to pass, for now (other than to say that Bill rightly zeroes in on the distinction between, on the one hand, deliberation and choice — which we certainly are capable of, and are central features of our humanity — and, on the other, non-deterministic, “free” deliberation, which I believe is asking too much).

Do go read them yourself, though. And if you like, we have a linked series of posts of our own on the subject, beginning here.

Nonsense. The same could be said about most of my liberal friends, and they seem perfectly happy.

It turns out that oobleck behaves very entertainingly indeed when pumped with low-frequency acoustic energy. Have a look here.

That’s oobleck at 30 Hz. at the other end of the acoustical spectrum is ultrasound, which is used in cool-mist humidifiers. Here’s a clip of that in action.

Finally, we have “ferrofluid”: an emulsion of surfactant-isolated ferromagnetic nanoparticles suspended in a carrier such as kerosene. Ferrofluid does some very entertaining things in a magnetic flux gradient, as you can see here.

Not a successful one, though: it looks like China’s going to drink our milkshake.

Oh well, at least we still have the Keystone Pipeline!

Oh, wait…

Feeling a little better today. Should be my old self shortly.

Update: OK, here’s something, in case you missed it over at Kevin’s place: Just who or what was Tom Bombadil, anyway?

Back to normal soon, I hope.

BE IT KNOWN ALSO that, Hizzonner having Determined, by the Light of His beneficent Wisdom, said Consumption to have become in recent Years EXCESSIVE, appropriate Arrangements therefore Soon shall be Made, throughout the Imperium, sharply to Limit the Vendition of intoxicating Beverages, so as to improve the Character, Comportment, and Eupepsia of His Flock.

It seems that thousands of red-winged blackbirds (and as far as I can tell, only red-winged blackbirds) fell dead from the sky on New Year’s Eve in the area around the town of Beebe: victims, apparently, of some “massive trauma”. The cause is as yet unspecified; those who abhor such explanatory vacua, and must fill them, have suggested that “a loud noise” might have been to blame.

A loud noise? It’s a dandy explanation, of course, and ought to settle the question — but as I head for the door I find myself turning back again, troubled, Columbo-style, by a nagging little detail. You see, the thing is that I have been around a lot of very loud noises in my day, and have even caused quite a few myself — and it strikes me that on no occasion did any of them, not even the very loudest, cause thousands of birds, of a single species, to drop lifeless from the firmament. So I wonder.

This seemed awfully strange then, but it seems even stranger now — because exactly the same thing has happened again, and on New Year’s Eve again, too.

I have not even the slightest inkling as to what might be going here, but it is very odd.

I figured it probably wouldn’t work out, though, so I gave up on the idea.

But just because the world (or at least Western civilization, which as far as I’m concerned amounts to pretty much the same thing) really is going down the drain doesn’t mean we can’t set aside our well-justified gloom for a moment, and raise a glass with family and friends. So here’s to you, readers! And for all I know, things really will turn around in 2012, and we’ll look back on this moment in history as the time when the West, at the very brink of disaster, awoke in sudden terror to the folly of the course it had charted, and with desperate resolve managed to steer clear of the fatal catastrophe.

Ha! Just kidding. Anyway, bottoms up, folks — and thanks as always for reading and commenting.

4th of july 1936
a leaky vessel
a parochial new yorker’s view of the world
about chicken and eggs
accumulation figure wherein
agricultural revolution beer
ahmadi nejad
america a hell on earth
analysys muscal de waka waka con sequencia
aporetic polyad
are so closely interwoven that it is exceedingly
argument device and strategy charts over heart of darkness
baby elephants
basiji
bastard
baxters glass eye
be courageous
bob koepp pissing contest
brevity is for the weak
cartoon rowboat hole
catchfart etymology
central railroad of new jersey
chicken broth collagen
christmas in government
close up those barren leaves
come thou mortal wretch
confusion now hath made his masterpiece
consonant cluster
cops – bulges
cosmic habituation
curmudgeonry gurdieff
death anxiety intelligent design
deogolwulf racist
dimocracy
diplomatic immune system
donkey with a lot of weight
drosophilosophers
earl butts trifecta
endoscope drying cabinet van vliet
enshrouding force robe
euphemism creep
extensive marginalia in old japanese medical books
extra nipples
f-22 sound barrier
free to obey
froccoli
frogger waka waka woo
fumfering definition
girl poops in woods
grand master william j. chung
gunwales awash
have a holly jolly diwali
he is getting cross
hell broth
homogeneous lichens
how to drink while effervescing
how to say i only have eyes for you in french
human evolution sea monkey
hung ga shaolin forearm conditioning
i flunked philosophy
i want waka waka
i’m afraid to look into my soul
immolation illumination
in the summer of 1919 the allied armies stood along the rhine
indian hairy exposed
iranian women bikini
is multiculturalism in retreat around the globe
is secularism maladaptive?
is waka a poser
jon gomm or john gomm or jonn gomm or jon gomme or jonn gomme or jon gom or john gomme or jonn gom or john gom or jongomm
jook lum 18 hands
junction of dune and salt marsh
kwan dao
land of a thousand dunces
lbj pig fucker
lenny bruce wax paper vote
let us therefore brace ourselves
life is hard but at least it’s short
like a hell broth boil and bubble
long weapon
lord birkenhead
malcolm chew sunshine empire words can never be enough
malcolm pollack trait group
malcolm pollock new york music
malcolm spinning out of control
meaning of demeaning
minicolumn astrocyte
moss piglets
mournful face
must be dug by hand
mutilated soldiers
my lord what should i give a man who allows himself to be buggered
need for the study of wheels
nietzsche apophthegmata
nothing gold can stay
oral gratification
oysters
pandwiliwakawaka
perils of diversity
peristeronic
phenomena occurring on the surface of the sun
pinkies up
pollack hitchens
proprioception empty power
protecting cables near railways
psychodynamics behind the burqa
quiznos delivery
red dodo almighty allah
sang froid your wife
scaffolding america
schwingtime
self abnegation among nations
self defense testicles
sensationalist hooey
sex mit moslems
sexual qualia
smoking while wearing a parka
solioonensius
speckled emperor moth
spit snot humiliation
steiner tree soap
stop that crow
sui generis autodidact
sun granule
surprise quiz paradox
tar baby
tardigrade
teflon god
ten voiders of islam
thar be a storm a brewin
the boy who cried sheep
the rabbi says “what’s green hangs on the wall and whistles?”
the story of the flood
the truth about waka waka
there may be something to it
there must be some mistake
three angle head turns
tiger fork
tiger swallow pigeon where to buy
toktoyaktuk
tornadoes picking up stuff pics
tower of babel malcolm
train switch tower nj
tunisian blond snipers
turtles all the way down
ufos threat menace
urge to urinate on hearing running water
urination on kaibab trail
uss abraham lincoln
wak a sack
waka waka is racist
waka waka naked
waka waka satan
we kinosavi mean
wellfleet snow
what is a moral fact
what is going on in egypt
what is the coldest turkey has ever been
what language is waka waka in??
who died in oceanside may 2006
wooden cigar store indian pictures
world kneels before waka
wuacawucawuaca
you cut me sir
you schmuck that’s how you wave a towel example of post hoc ergo propter hoc
you’ll just plotz
zombie broccoli

– 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 city dwellers yearning for a rustic getaway, some Cabin Porn.

– Some very detailed doodles.

– Music hath charms, etc.

We’ll be back to normal operations sometime early next year. Until then, we’ll be focusing on our habitual last-days-of-December routine, which consists mostly of deserted seascapes, cheery blazes, old books, introspective rumination, and potent seasonal beverages.

This was a far different era of Western civilization. It’s hard to imagine that it was within living memory of many who are still with us.