February 28, 2013 – 9:05 pm
I’m working late tonight, so here’s a strange item for you to mull over: the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Read about it on Wikipedia, here, or for a more detailed account, have a look here. Strangest of all: the missing tongue.
February 28, 2013 – 1:54 pm
Here’s Maxine Waters, who is a walking one-woman argument for limiting the power of the Federal government, “explaining” sequestration. Apparently, more jobs will be lost — 170 million — than currently exist. As Charles Cooke said on Twitter just now, “I wouldn’t trust this woman to explain how a fork works.”
February 27, 2013 – 11:58 pm
From Norway: an uncommonly open-minded video about race. Here.
February 26, 2013 – 11:19 pm
… goes wabbling back to the Fire.
February 26, 2013 – 11:13 pm
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a festschrift on Federal spending, from the Heritage Foundation. Browse. And just for some perspective about the calamitous effects of the impending “sequestration” — upon which event, we are told, the sun will be folded up, the heavens flayed, the pregnant she-camels neglected, and Hell set […]
February 23, 2013 – 10:37 pm
I’ve written and deleted three posts already today, and am just going to lay off for a day or two. I’m cranky and fed up, and have a toothache besides, and nothing interesting, good or useful will come of writing under such circumstances. Back in a bit.
February 22, 2013 – 11:40 pm
Writing at NRO, Jonah Goldberg comments on the sky-is-falling hysteria surrounding the impending “sequester” — which, were you just to listen to the news or to White House Press releases, you’d never imagine would still leave the federal government spending more money than last year. Mr. Goldberg observes: Obama wants more tax hikes and thinks […]
February 22, 2013 – 2:36 pm
The world’s tuna fishery is collapsing, with prime specimens selling for seven-digit prices. Yet tuna is everywhere, from supermarket shelves to delis to sushi bars, and the retail cost remains low. How is this possible? According to this item, a majority of the “tuna” being sold in the U.S. isn’t tuna at all. A lot […]
February 21, 2013 – 11:47 pm
Mencius Moldbug comments on the approaching death of Lawrence Auster, here. Auster himself is puzzled, and I think his puzzlement illustrates rather well exactly the points Moldbug makes about him: Auster’s specialty is order and clarity, while Moldbug’s piece, as always, is long, discursive, and sesquipedalian. But I thought it was quite a nice tribute, […]
February 21, 2013 – 3:29 pm
Over at Mangan’s, our friend Dennis links to a post by Bruce Charlton about the cratering birthrates of the developed, Westernized world. That there is something maladaptive about secular modernity has been apparent for some time, and I’ve written about this myself; most of the discussion to date, however, has focused on social and cultural […]
February 20, 2013 – 9:35 pm
I’m just whipped tonight, having got home from work at 5 a.m. this morning, and having to get right back up for another long day. A miscellany for tonight, then: — Some Forteana, here and here. — The world’s Tweets, in real time. — From Russia, with love (you might have missed this one). — […]
February 19, 2013 – 1:44 pm
With a hat tip to reader Bill Keezer, here’s a blunt, crepuscular rant from noted gloominary Victor Davis Hanson.
February 19, 2013 – 12:02 pm
A young researcher in China has begun a project to find the genetic basis for the heritable components of human intelligence. We shouldn’t be surprised to see that this is happening in China, and not in the West, where most of the academics I know are of the opinion that there’s no such thing as […]
February 19, 2013 – 1:01 am
Milton Freidman responds to President Obama’s call for a hike in the minimum wage. Here, from beyond the grave.
February 18, 2013 – 9:24 pm
Kevin Kim, whose academic specialty is the study of the world’s religions, has written a stupendous essay on the possibly-divine nature of Peter Sellers’s character Chance, from the movie Being There. Get thee hence and read it, here.
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 […]
February 17, 2013 – 10:46 pm
I do love Wikipedia. Here’s a page listing those parts of our bodies that are named after people.
February 17, 2013 – 1:16 am
A vexing feature of modern physicalistic non-theism is that, followed to its logical conclusion, it leads to moral nihilism. (I realize that theistic attempts to put morality on an objective basis also face serious challenges, but that’s not the point tonight.) Moral nihilism being, to most folks, bad, there’s been a rash lately of books […]
February 15, 2013 – 12:13 am
As often happens to me at this point in the week, I’m up late again, working. I’ve been thinking about all sorts of postworthy topics in the past few days, but I just can’t find the time right now to write about them, so they’ll have to wait. So for tonight, all I have to […]
February 13, 2013 – 3:40 pm
Sad news from Lawrence Auster today: the pancreatic cancer he’s been fighting so stoically has now metastasized to his brain. It’s hard to imagine that he has much time left. It’s also hard to imagine VFR silenced.
February 12, 2013 – 11:58 pm
I haven’t got a whole lot to say about the speech. What did anyone expect? There isn’t a problem anywhere on Earth that isn’t best solved by some new Federal program, “partnership”, or “investment”. And all without adding a “single dime” to the deficit. There was the call for higher Federal minimum wage, the argument […]
February 12, 2013 – 4:09 pm
My God, this is unbelievable. The IOC has decided that wrestling will no longer be part of the Olympics as of 2020. Wrestling. What next, running? Well, at least we still have synchronized swimming, ping pong, kayaking and badminton, for you traditionalists.
February 12, 2013 – 1:27 pm
Slideshows (scroll down) here and here, respectively.
February 12, 2013 – 12:01 am
The End of Days, 263 ways, ancient and modern. Here.
February 11, 2013 – 11:28 pm
So, it seems that North Korea has detonated another atomic weapon. I wonder if there will be any room for this in tomorrow’s SOTU, in between calling for new “investments” and introducing all the Lenny Shotniks I’ve heard will be attending.
February 11, 2013 – 2:39 pm
If you live in Santo AntÁ´nio da Platina, Brazil, you might want to buy an umbrella. Or, better yet, a new home, somewhere else.
February 10, 2013 – 11:11 pm
Here’s Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick’s pre-storm presser from Thursday night. Pure gold.
February 10, 2013 – 9:59 pm
Readers, as bad as things may be getting over here — and anyone with any sense can see they’re going to get a hell of a lot worse before they get better — at least we don’t have to endure some of the unspeakable horrors that afflict other, less fortunate nations. So be of stout […]
February 10, 2013 – 9:34 pm
Attentive readers may recall that a few years ago we U.S. taxpayers lent $465 million to Tesla, a maker of electric cars. More recently we restructured the loan so that Tesla wouldn’t run out of money. (It is now, after all, a matter of vital national interest that Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial speculations actually pay off.) […]
February 9, 2013 – 11:55 pm
I’ve mentioned the incomparable Deepak Chopra in these pages a time or two in the past. The man is of course the world’s greatest living mountebank, and has made a fabulous living hawking 24-carat flapdoodle to swooning suckers. You have to admire talent like that. As it turns out, somebody admires it enough to have […]
February 9, 2013 – 10:46 pm
In case you haven’t heard, the chattering classes are all atwitter about a talk given at the recent National Prayer Breakfast by one Ben Carson, chief of pediatric neurosurgery at John Hopkins. At the podium, standing just a few feet away from President Obama, Dr. Carson spoke about several matters of national policy — in […]
February 9, 2013 – 1:19 am
That’s right, flying squid. And as fast as Usain Bolt, if flying isn’t enough. Here. (“Fast ‘n’ bulbous”, as I think a wise man once said.)
February 8, 2013 – 10:35 pm
Here’s an clever idea: crowdsourcing of malaria diagnosis, using a simple video game. Have a look.
February 8, 2013 – 10:15 pm
If you’ve been following the national “conversation” about immigration and race relations (at least as publicly reported), it may come as a surprise to you to learn that one can speak about these things in a heterodox way on any grounds but “hate”. To express such dissenting opinions, however rational their basis, and however common […]
February 8, 2013 – 1:24 am
Here. Courtesy of Devin Townsend.
February 7, 2013 – 12:46 am
I’m swamped with work this week, so no time for writing. But as always, I’d hate for you to go away empty-handed — so here’s a fantastic dance scene by the one and only Eleanor Powell, accompanied by a young Buddy Rich.
February 5, 2013 – 10:51 pm
If you’re like me, you’ve been wondering whether there are any critters out there that can locate food by way of odor gradients. Well, meet the Eastern mole: the mammal that smells in stereo.
February 5, 2013 – 12:44 pm
This just in: the largest known prime number is now 257,885,161 – 1. More here.
February 4, 2013 – 8:59 pm
I almost never write about gustatory matters here, but I’ll make an exception to rave about a particularly outstanding offering from one of America’s most creative microbreweries, Dogfish Head. Dogfish Head specializes in unusual and high-strength ales. Their best-known products are their highly hopped IPAs (the 90-Minute Imperial IPA, weighing in at 9% alcohol by […]
February 4, 2013 – 5:20 pm
February is probably the quietest and loneliest month on the Outer Cape, but in many ways the deep winter is most beautiful time of year out here, I think. Here’s the high bluff at the end of Longnook Road, Truro, late yesterday afternoon.
February 4, 2013 – 12:13 am
Here’s the late Chris Kyle being interviewed by one Belinda Luscombe, an editor at Time. The gulf between them is obvious. It seems to me that to her he is almost incomprehensible, as if he belonged to some alien species. (Which probably isn’t very far from the truth: I expect that Mr. Kyle had very […]
February 3, 2013 – 6:01 pm
“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” – Leonardo do Vinci
February 3, 2013 – 12:31 am
We’ve just heard that the renowned Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the most effective sniper in American military history, has been murdered in Texas. Details are scant. Our deepest condolences to his young family.
February 3, 2013 – 12:28 am
We were down for a while tonight: our hosting service, Bluehost.com, had its first extended outage in the seven years I’ve been with them. (I enthusiastically recommend them, nevertheless, to any of you who are looking for an Internet host; Bluehost provides outstanding and highly reliable service for an insignificant sum of money. There isn’t […]
February 2, 2013 – 7:38 pm
Here’s a fine curmudgeonly rant about some of the lousy products we’ve had forced on us by our government’s shouldering aside of free markets in the name of saving the Planet. (My pet peeve: those bloody CF bulbs.) If, upon reading this, your inclination is to leave a comment about how wonderful it is once […]
February 1, 2013 – 12:53 pm
Ed Koch died today. He was a good mayor (not perfect, but who is?), a hell of a character, and a real New Yorker. We Gothamites will miss him. R.I.P., Ed. You did just fine.