February 16, 2016 – 8:35 pm
Time to look away, for a moment, from the gloomy downhill parade of current events. Instead, here’s a look at one of the most difficult systems of Chinese martial arts, as performed by Grandmaster Chan Sau Chung. (The quality of the video is poor, but the quality of the kung fu is exquisite.) I have […]
February 15, 2016 – 5:37 pm
Jonah Goldberg (with whom I agree about some things and not about others, as I do with pretty much everyone else on whatever we might very broadly call “the Right”) has posted some thoughtful remarks about the death of Antonin Scalia. You can read them here. This in particular stood out: The division of blame […]
February 13, 2016 – 11:49 pm
What does Antonin Scalia’s death mean for the action of the Court? In the broadest terms, there are four scenarios; three of which are unaffected, at least in purely numerical terms: The Supreme Court reviews lower-court decisions. Let us call decisions that would be upheld by conservative justices (Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and, generally speaking, Roberts) […]
February 13, 2016 – 9:31 pm
It was with the profoundest shock and sorrow that I learned, early this evening, of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. This is devastating news. I was an enormous admirer of this great jurist — not only as an irreplaceable defender of the Constitution, but as writer, a philosopher, a scholar, a humorist, a raconteur, […]
February 12, 2016 – 10:25 pm
Here’s your frisson du jour.
February 11, 2016 – 7:57 pm
I’ve been using the hosting service Bluehost for eleven years now, and until recently I’ve been thrilled with their service, and have recommended them often to other bloggers. Lately, though, they’ve been scaling up, and downtime’s increased. Worse, their tech support, which used to be prompt and helpful, has been all but unreachable lately. We’ve […]
February 11, 2016 – 3:27 pm
It’s a big day in physics: researchers using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have confirmed the existence and propagation of ripples in spacetime caused by the movement of massive objects. The observation of such waves is a posthumous triumph for Albert Einstein, who first predicted their existence a century ago this year. While I’m […]
February 10, 2016 – 5:16 pm
With the presidential campaign now at cruising speed, I thought it might be helpful to offer some readings and reflections on the nature of democracy itself: what it really is, what it isn’t, and how it really works. Really, if you want to understand this contraption, what you ought to read is a book that […]
February 9, 2016 – 7:35 pm
Here’s a heartening item: Supreme Court freezes Obama plan to limit carbon emissions We read: The court granted a stay request from more than two dozen states, utilities and coal miners who said the Environmental Protection Agency was overstepping its powers… The stay means that questions about the legality of the program will remain after […]
February 9, 2016 – 7:16 pm
About three years ago I wrote a brief item about Toxoplasma gondii, which is a cat-borne parasite that causes behavioral aberrations in mice — and appears to do the same in humans too. The article I originally linked to is here, and today I’ll add a link to another article, here. At the time, however, […]
February 9, 2016 – 12:13 am
“Evidence is fact that discriminates between one theory and another. Facts do not “speak for themselves.’ They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theory or visions are mere isolated curiosities.” — Thomas Sowell, A Conflict Of Visions
February 5, 2016 – 8:16 pm
The other day our President, Barack Hussein Obama, took time out of his busy schedule to visit a Baltimore mosque. There he delivered an obsequious panegyric about the glorious role of Islam in America’s history. (If there is a major, or even mid-tier, religion that has in fact played a lesser role in America’s founding, […]
February 5, 2016 – 5:46 pm
Snow in Wellfleet today. The view out our front door this afternoon:
February 4, 2016 – 10:41 pm
I’ve just read the testimony that Border Patrol agent Brandon Judd gave to the House Judiciary committee today. Some longish excerpts: In the late 1990s as a young Border Patrol Agent, I witnessed first-hand how adept these criminal cartels were at exploiting our policies. While I was working in the Buttercup Dunes in the remote […]
February 3, 2016 – 4:13 pm
Bob Elliott, the surviving member of the great comedy duo Bob & Ray, has died. He was 92. Nobody much younger than I am will even know who these people were. It’s the curse of the old that only they know, as the great mill of history grinds the past into dust, what has been […]
February 3, 2016 – 2:24 pm
Among the most entertaining accounts on Twitter over the past year or so has been the reactionary heckler known to his audience as “The Duck” (@jokeocracy). With Twitter apparently getting ready to crack down on dissident-right accounts, the Duck decided to go out in blazing style, and spent a recent Sunday trolling mainstream, in particular […]
February 2, 2016 – 3:10 pm
From CNN: The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that the acting administrator for the Transportation Security Administration would be reassigned, following a report that airport screeners failed to detect explosives and weapons in nearly every test that an undercover team conducted at dozens of airports. According to a report based on an internal investigation, […]
February 1, 2016 – 9:04 pm
Sorry — the little grey cells are resting tonight, so all I have is a few small items. ‣ The State Department recently announced that it would not be releasing some of the emails taken from the private, unsecured server Hillary Clinton kept in her bathroom in Chappaqua, because they are too secret. Former […]
January 31, 2016 – 11:55 pm
Readers will be aware that I’m recovering, slowly, from having my left knee replaced. (It’ll be three weeks tomorrow since the surgery.) The operation was actually a redo of the original job, last March, which turned out to have been botched. Total knee replacement is major surgery — it inflicts a grievous wound, and the […]
January 31, 2016 – 7:33 pm
We’ve written often (for example, here) about the unbroken ideological and doctrinal thread connecting the Puritanism of the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the modern, secular religion of the Left. The “mission into the wilderness” continues unabated, its outward forms unaltered. All that changes is the temporal object of the mission: the MacGuffin varies from picture […]
January 30, 2016 – 4:30 pm
I meant to comment on this when it happened a few days ago: Rome’s nude statues covered up ahead of Rouhani visit In further concession to Iranian president, official dinner with Italian PM does not include wine on the menu What a craven, flabby, neutered thing our civilization has become. This is what ACID syndrome […]
January 28, 2016 – 4:37 pm
It’s been almost a year — it was February 28th, 2015 — since I predicted that Hillary Clinton would not be the Democratic nominee. (Readers can find the historic vaticination — upon which I immediately staked a bottle of whisky in a wager with our commenter ‘The One Eyed Man’ — in the comment-thread here.) […]
January 27, 2016 – 2:39 pm
Here’s an extended meditation on that modern Sisyphus, Wile E. Coyote, and on the genius of his creator, Chuck Jones.
January 26, 2016 – 7:55 pm
Here’s another clarifying and informative piece by Sean Davis on firearms: 14 Things Everyone Should Understand About Guns. (I say “another” above because we’ve linked to Mr. Davis’s articles, such as this one, before.)
January 23, 2016 – 11:22 pm
In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes wrote the following about why humans fight: ”˜So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second for safety; and the third for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters […]
January 22, 2016 – 10:20 pm
My boy Nick just sent me a link to a YouTube channel that you might find interesting. (I did.) Here.
January 22, 2016 – 8:00 pm
I have to say: it would be hard to imagine a livelier political season, or one more fitting for these times. Over on the left, Hillary Clinton is watching it all slip away all over again — this time to a pallid, septuagenarian Marxist from Vermont. (I’ve had many wonderful blessings in my life, but […]
January 20, 2016 – 9:47 pm
I’m still way too fuzzy to write, so just a couple of links: First, an amusing little allegory posted at Gates of Vienna (with a h/t to Bill Keezer; I’ve been offline a lot this week, and hadn’t visited GoV in a few days). Second, I think a recent podcast by John D. on the […]
January 19, 2016 – 3:19 pm
You just might have to watch this more than once.
January 18, 2016 – 6:00 pm
The big story over the past week has been the news from Iran: the ransoming of our hostages, the fat payoff for the nuclear deal (but I repeat myself), and the humiliating capture by Iran of riverine patrol boats allegedly adrift in the Gulf. Normally I’d really be digging in on this one, but it’s […]
January 15, 2016 – 2:25 pm
Just got a package from Amazon containing a CD by the rock band Clutch. I have no idea who sent it to me, but I do get the occasional item in the mail from readers (mostly books). Anyway, thanks, whoever you are. This is not exactly the sort of thing I usually listen to, but […]
January 11, 2016 – 12:27 pm
OK, off for knee-revision surgery at 4:30. Back in harness before too long, I expect. At the very least I’ll post something, just as “proof of life”, as soon as I am able. If not, carry on! The barbarians are at the gates. Update, January 13th: I’m back home, but completely knackered. It was a […]
January 11, 2016 – 12:12 pm
I was shocked and saddened to read this morning that David Bowie has died of cancer at age 69. He was one of the greatest artists of my age. He touched nothing that he did not adorn. I consider myself enormously fortunate to have had a slight personal acquaintance with Mr. Bowie. (I met him […]
January 10, 2016 – 1:35 pm
I don’t know if you’ve been following this crazy Sean-Penn-El-Chapo story, but what an incredible dope Sean Penn is: The Man Who Got El Chapo Arrested. He will now have every neck-tattooed La Santa Muerte gang-banger south of the Rio Grande hunting him down until the end of his days. I reckon that at this […]
January 10, 2016 – 12:46 pm
In a post a few months ago, while developing a metaphor involving collapsing stars, I commented on the vulnerabilities of the load-bearing structures that support a civilization’s weight: Given that what gives a culture its form is essentially ‘memetic’ — an aggregation of ideas, lore, mythos, history, music, religion, duties, obligations, affinities, and aversions shared […]
January 10, 2016 – 1:04 am
Over at Maverick Philosopher, Bill Vallicella has taken on the question, raised by a disciplinary action at Wheaton College, of whether Christians and Muslims worship the “same God”. I’m not a religious believer myself, but over the past decade or so the naive atheism of my earlier years has withered away to a sympathetic agnosticism, […]
January 8, 2016 – 5:51 pm
Sorry for another grab-bag post, but even with all that’s going on in the U.S. and abroad I just don’t have the “bandwidth” to do much writing at the moment. (It may not be until I’ve recovered a bit from Monday’s surgery that things will get back to normal around here.) I’m also so fatigued […]
January 5, 2016 – 12:45 am
Sorry about the quiet spell here, readers. Our lovely daughter (newly betrothed!) has been visiting us from Vienna over the “hols”, and it’s been good to disconnect from the wider world for a couple of weeks. I’m sorry to say, also, that another hiatus is coming up soon. Some of you may remember that I […]