Monthly Archives: August 2011

On Again, Off Again

August 30, 2011 – 11:36 am

Well, we’re stuck without power again, as of this morning. There are posts I’d like to write, but I’m not about to do so on this cell-phone, which is my only way of getting online. Worst of all: beer getting warm again.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall

August 27, 2011 – 4:24 pm

Well here we are again, almost exactly a year later, perched on our little hilltop way out on a sandy spit in the Atlantic, bracing ourselves for a hurricane. Last year’s offering, Earl, missed us to the east; this one is supposed to pass by a little way off to the west. It’s always a […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Cape Cod | Comments (16)

Birth Of A Notion

August 25, 2011 – 10:33 am

It was Richard Dawkins who gave us, in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, the idea of the “meme”. The concept, by replicating itself into millions of human minds, has turned out to be a robustly successful meme in its own right — and Professor Dawkins is rightly credited with setting it loose in the […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain, Darwin and Biology | Comments (11)

The Honey Badger

August 21, 2011 – 1:44 pm

As advertised, we’re lying low out here in the remoter reaches of Cape Cod, and paying little attention to the wider world. I hear there are things going on out there — apparently something’s happening in the Middle East or something — but my attention has been more focused on oysters, old books, and keeping […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Shameless Filler | Comments (0)

Goldilocks Chemistry

August 16, 2011 – 10:44 pm

If we infidels are going to go around insisting that life arose spontaneously without miraculous intervention, then we’re naturally going to have a keen interest in providing an explanation of how that could have happened. To make the story hang together, what’s needed is for some sort of self-replicating molecules to have arisen, and a […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology, Science | Comments (20)

Perfect! Let’s Do One More

August 14, 2011 – 9:07 pm

Here’s the great voice-over artist Bob Kaliban in some recently discovered studio footage. Have a glimpse behind the scenes in the ad biz of old.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (4)

Ship Of State

August 14, 2011 – 2:18 pm

The Tea Party has taken heavy fire lately: blamed by the MSM for our recent market volatility and S&P credit downgrade, derogated as “hostage-takers” and “terrorists” by prominent Democrats, while leading Tea Party candidates have been the subject of scary magazine articles and intentionally hideous cover photos. (All part of the rough-and-tumble of American politics, […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Summertime

August 13, 2011 – 10:40 pm

Ah, the Casuals at the Beachcomber. What could be better? Here’s a live feed, if you read this in the next little while. They’ve been playing this joint for 31 years.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (0)

Snob-goggles

August 13, 2011 – 11:57 am

Here’s some trenchant commentary on the UK’s oikophobic response to its wave of riots, from Brendan O’Neill at spiked.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (0)

Tiger In The Tank

August 13, 2011 – 11:09 am

Charles Murray saw it coming.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Retrieval From Multiple Heterogeneous Sources

August 12, 2011 – 9:13 pm

I have a feeling this could really catch on…

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

must… save… planet…

August 11, 2011 – 4:18 pm

What’s the biggest problem facing America today? What’s the Obama administration’s top priority? Jobs, you say? The economy? Of course not, silly! It’s carbon.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (5)

Well, Blow Me Down

August 11, 2011 – 3:17 pm

In the past day or so Dennis Mangan and others have mentioned this important new study confirming the heritability of intelligence. The results will hardly be a shock to denizens of the HBD blogosphere, or for that matter anyone who has been following the actual science of psychometrics, but are bound to raise a hackle […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain, Darwin and Biology | Comments (2)

Head In The Sand

August 10, 2011 – 8:10 pm

As the long-awaited global apocalypse unfolds before our eyes, I’ve done what any responsible citizen with a proper sense of duty — or in fact, any sense at all — would do: run away. The lovely Nina and I have withdrawn to a well-provisioned bolt-hole in one of the nation’s easternmost extremities, and as long […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (16)

A Poor Standard

August 9, 2011 – 9:25 pm

In today’s Times there’s a harsh look at Standard and Poor’s ratings system, by Nate Silver. An excerpt: [T]he evidence from the past five years suggests that it may be worthwhile to adopt a contrarian investing strategy that specifically bets against S.&P.’s ratings. If you were trying to predict a country’s default risk today, based […]

By Malcolm | Posted in The Economy | Comments (0)

Help Wanted

August 8, 2011 – 4:12 pm

Winston Churchill was, in my opinion, the greatest statesman and wartime leader of the 20th century, and America’s surest friend since Lafayette. In the aftermath of 9/11, the UK sent a bust of Churchill to the President, as token of enduring solidarity from our closest and most natural ally among all the nations of the […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (15)

Big Bottom

August 6, 2011 – 4:37 pm

Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (4)

Nothing Gold Can Stay

August 6, 2011 – 2:00 pm

Awful news: 31 US troops, including 22 members of Seal Team Six, were killed in Afghanistan by a Taliban attack on a Chinook helicopter in Wardak province, Afghanistan. This adds deep, and deeply symbolic, sorrow to what is already a very grim weekend indeed here in America. They went with songs to the battle, they […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

S & P

August 5, 2011 – 8:50 pm

If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be a drug mule who’s just swallowed five condoms full of heroin, ask someone who’s long in the market this weekend.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (22)

High Road

August 5, 2011 – 8:25 pm

“In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak, but for that you must have long legs.” – Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

By Malcolm | Posted in Apophthegmata | Comments (0)

Oslo and the Right, Two Weeks On

August 5, 2011 – 4:24 pm

It’s been a fortnight now since Anders Behring Breivik’s havoc in Oslo. Cultural-conservative bloggers, aghast, have mostly tried to do three things in their subsequent commentrary: First and foremost, to condemn Breivik’s mass slaughter as irredeemably evil; Second, to dissociate themselves from any responsibility for it; Third, to attempt, within the context of the strongest […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Foreign Affairs | Comments (8)

Easy Come, Easy Go

August 4, 2011 – 11:02 pm

Got home too late to write anything tonight — worked a long day at the office, then stopped off on the way home to grab a couple of slices with what was left of my 401(k).

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

A Very Serious Delusion Indeed

August 3, 2011 – 6:06 pm

A “tweet” from Iowahawk just now: Read this, then read this. O’Brien: You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (0)

Time, Effort, Focus

August 3, 2011 – 11:01 am

New blog on the way from our friend Kevin Kim. Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Get This

August 2, 2011 – 9:07 pm

I had the TV on just now, and was watching Piers Morgan. He had on a fellow named Brad Thor, who apparently is a “terrorism expert” and author of “thriller”-style novels. They were talking about Norway, and about how much of a shock the Breivik rampage was to a nation that never saw it coming, […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (0)

Done Deal!

August 2, 2011 – 8:13 pm

Well, we got our debt-limit increase. It’s a fantastic piece of legislation: it starts right off by “saving” almost a trillion dollars over the next ten years. (We’ll borrow that much in the next nine months, but hey: politics is the “art of the possible”.) Next, I think we should take care of the drunk-driving […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

That’s A Big Fringe

August 2, 2011 – 11:39 am

Here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (4)

Iko Iko

August 1, 2011 – 10:19 pm

As advertised in this space a few weeks ago, Dr. John played at the Prospect Park Bandshell this past Saturday night (with go-go legend Chuck Brown and another very funky band called Red Baraat as openers). It was a fabulous show. Sorry you missed it. Dr. John is a walking encyclopedia of the American musical […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (0)