January 30, 2014 – 9:20 pm
I’ve been working long hours this week, and haven’t had the time — nor sufficient sleep — to write anything worth reading. Meanwhile, the links have been piling up, as they tend to do. So it’s time once again to flush, as we programmers say, the cache: — Another reason that I hope humans never […]
January 29, 2014 – 12:10 am
Here’s a pleasingly dyspeptic assessment of the State of the Union pageant, from Kevin D. Williamson.
January 27, 2014 – 7:27 pm
It’s the dead of winter here in the Outer Cape, and it’s been unusually cold and snowy. That doesn’t stop me from getting outside, though. Here are a few cell-phone shots from some recent walks around Wellfleet: First, our little wooded lane, after Tuesday’s snowstorm: Next, a few shots of Duck Harbor from about ten […]
January 26, 2014 – 11:58 pm
Here’s a mighty funny item from The Daily Show.
January 24, 2014 – 11:32 pm
Here’s something that seems to be in the air today. Yesterday I added a comment to our Benghazi thread from a few days back. As usually happens as threads lengthen, the conversation had wandered off-topic toward the more general sort of ideological scuffling that is a constant attractor in any discussion of current events these […]
January 23, 2014 – 11:21 pm
A common response from those who wish to inoculate the Obama administration, and in particular Hillary Clinton, from charges of negligence and malfeasance in the Benghazi murders, is to suggest that Ambassador Chris Stevens was in large part responsible for the absence of security at the diplomatic compound. In our own comment thread, for example, […]
January 21, 2014 – 7:14 pm
The venerable liberal journalist Nat Hentoff joins the chorus calling for Barack Obama’s impeachment. Worth a try, say I. The only plausible objection I can think of is Joe Biden, but at this point that’s a trade I’d be glad to make.
January 20, 2014 – 11:00 pm
Boy, do these things pile up quickly. — Ice balls. — I can almost hear him say “I told you so.” — Maybe we can get the Dems to primary this guy in 2016. — Well, whaddya know? — Satan’s Kimchi. — Common sense from Jim Cramer. — Even more personality tests. — Race trumps […]
January 19, 2014 – 11:30 pm
A lot has been made of The New York Times’s recent article, by David Kirkpatrick, about the sacking of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi on September 11th of 2012, in which four men, including our ambassador, were killed. The Obama administration’s partisans have given the article a triumphal reception, and have announced repeatedly that […]
January 18, 2014 – 2:14 pm
According to the New York Times, the “prolonged” execution of one Dennis McGuire — who had been condemned for the brutal murder of a young pregnant woman — has raised, once again, questions about the humaneness of various methods of execution. In Mr. McGuire’s case, the technique was lethal injection: As the lethal drugs flowed […]
January 16, 2014 – 4:58 pm
For today’s reading, we have an essay on income inequality by tech entrepreneur Paul Graham. Mr. Graham makes two key points: First, he reminds us that in a free society, the natural diversity of human characteristics, talents, and dispositions will always result in inequalities of wealth: When people care enough about something to do it […]
January 15, 2014 – 6:52 pm
The psychotic, pestiferous torrent of cultural-Marxist sludge excerpted below is, apparently, what a college education in the humanities produces nowadays. This is the moment when you make of your fist the same clench in your teeth, make of your tongue all the textbooks your school was not funded enough to provide you with, make of […]
January 14, 2014 – 6:44 pm
Here is a good example, from the Huffington Post, of a modern Eloi woman: a psychotherapist who responds to her young son’s naturally boyish play by wondering where she “went wrong”. (As one commenter remarks, it’s as if she sees her normal boy as a “defective girl”.) In particular, she is horrified that he might […]
January 14, 2014 – 12:30 am
I’m having a busy stretch here; the blog might be rather quieter than usual for a few days. Back to normal soon.
January 11, 2014 – 2:11 pm
Today we have an interesting piece by Nick Land on John Smart’s novel approach to the Fermi Paradox (see here for more about the Fermi Paradox, if you aren’t familiar with the term): that advanced civilizations, rather than expanding into space, relentlessly turn inward. We read: John M. Smart’s solution to the Fermi Paradox is […]
January 11, 2014 – 12:45 am
I haven’t anything substantial prepared for tonight, so just a brief salmagundi: — Fun with sound waves. — A lexical-distance graph of European languages. (Where’s Basque? So far out it’s off the chart, maybe.) — “Exponential medicine”. — VDH vs. Pajama Boy. — Amazing to see this, from the Times’s senior science writer. Is the […]
January 8, 2014 – 9:20 pm
In the comment-thread to our post about Duck Dynasty a few weeks back, the discussion turned to abortion rights. I wrote this: Are the not-yet-born rights-bearing persons, deserving of moral consideration? One would think that in a morally consistent ethics this would be an attribute inhering in the unborn person ”” but apparently in many […]
January 7, 2014 – 12:39 pm
Here’s an outstanding piece by Heather Mac Donald on our new, Marxist mayor. I had begun to prepare some excerpts and commentary, but you should really just go read the whole thing, here.
January 6, 2014 – 11:11 pm
It’s a sad day here at waka waka, where we’ve just heard that an old friend, Dr. Clive Sell of Phoenix, Arizona, has died unexpectedly of a heart attack. I got to know Clive many years ago, and hadn’t seen him in a long time, but he was a fine man: a charming Southerner, exceptionally […]
January 5, 2014 – 12:39 pm
Here’s a story that might get interesting. I’ll let you know.
January 5, 2014 – 12:08 pm
In part 3 of his “Gentle introduction“, the reactionary and monarchist writer Mencius Moldbug examines a possible framework for the creation of a new ‘noble’ class: Let’s say you were a person who didn’t care at all about the Constitution, and you wanted to take America back to the past and establish a new order […]
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 […]
January 4, 2014 – 12:42 pm
The computer scientist David Gelernter has just posted an essay about the aggressiveness and overreach of contemporary scientism and transhumanism. In particular, he focuses on what he perceives to be an assault on the essence of our humanity — our subjectivity, which so far remains an impenetrable mystery. We read: Today science and the “philosophy […]
January 4, 2014 – 12:11 am
They’ve been piling up a bit, I’m afraid. — Graphene: the gift that keeps on giving. — Remember what happened to the Shakers, kitten. — How to keep your man. — The Daily Telegraph, just a century ago. — “You will know us by the trail of dead.” — Ice, Ice, Baby. — Eagle grinders: […]
January 2, 2014 – 11:06 pm
As you may have heard, there’s quite a storm on in the Northeast tonight. The lovely Nina and I are riding it out in our snug little dacha at the far end of Cape Cod, twenty-five miles out in the Atlantic. It’s been snowing all day, and we’re supposed to end up with about two […]
January 1, 2014 – 11:27 pm
Once again, here’s our New Year’s selection of some of the search-engine keyphrases that have brought visitors our way in the past year: dark enlightenment mola mola compelling natural force washington monument syndrome freedom go to hell what is a moral fact he’s no fun he fell right over hirsutative nipples brooklyn outwash moraine fools […]