November 30, 2017 – 10:41 pm
The Kate Steinle verdict is in: the accused was found guilty only of a weapons charge, and was completely exonerated in causing her death — despite having undisputedly fired the shot that killed her. Frankly, I am not surprised, given the venue. But this will not sit well.
November 30, 2017 – 10:12 pm
Sunset tonight on the tidal flats at Wellfleet Harbor:
November 30, 2017 – 8:20 pm
It’s been quite a while since I’ve put up one of these omnibus posts. Let’s see what I have lying around here: ‣ Jonathan Bowden on the Soviet gulag. ‣ WWII waist-gunner training cartoon, featuring none other than the great Mel Blanc. ‣ Twelve ways artificial wombs will change the world. ‣ […]
November 29, 2017 – 6:07 pm
Well, the sexual-harassment scalps keep piling up. Today it’s Matt Lauer (fine with me; I never could stand the guy), Garrison Keillor, and, if I recall correctly, some executive at NPR (who can keep track anymore?). The wholesale termination of all these male media bigwigs will likely have a consequence that, so far, I haven’t […]
November 28, 2017 – 4:28 pm
I’m just going to lay down a marker here, so I can say “I told you so” years from now. The world’s climate will clearly have become significantly colder within, at most, one decade, and we will be looking back at global-warming hysteria and wondering how we could have been such fools.
November 27, 2017 – 6:21 pm
With a hat-tip to Bill Vallicella, here’s a brief and worthwhile article on immigration. Go and read the whole thing. You may notice some overlap with the ideas expressed in my own post Simple Common Sense About Diversity And Immigration, from 2013.
November 23, 2017 – 1:15 pm
… to all of you, as always. Thank you for reading and commenting. As we noted recently, gratitude is perhaps the most important requirement for a happy life. We have much to be thankful for today in America; as a nation we can be thankful, especially, for the mortal calamity we avoided a year ago […]
November 22, 2017 – 2:47 pm
Richard Fernandez: Some social commentators have noted a mood of disillusionment. “Millennials report depression in higher numbers than any previous generation”, up to one in five. People appear to be tuning out of politicized “comedy”, sports and entertainment, exhausted by the public frenzy. It’s a direct consequence of the fall of the Narrative. The irony […]
November 22, 2017 – 12:06 pm
Here’s a timeline of the Uranium One caper. (Caveat lector: I haven’t independently confirmed every detail, but it seems about right.) See also Andrew McCarthy’s summary here, and his discussion with John Batchelor, here.
November 21, 2017 – 7:31 pm
Is it me, or does the Las Vegas shooting seem to have dropped right down the memory hole? We still don’t have a clear motive; there’s the laptop with the missing hard-drive; the time-line has gone through several revisions, and there was the very curious story of the actions of the hotel security guard — […]
November 20, 2017 – 6:04 pm
In this short video clip, Dennis Prager names the single trait that, in his opinion, is the key to happiness. I’m not at all sure that it all boils down to a single factor — but I’ll agree with him that if it does, he’s picked the right one. And, it being late November, the […]
November 18, 2017 – 9:38 pm
There’s a been a fuss about President Trump’s plan to remove the Obama-era ban on elephant trophies. Bien-pensant liberals greeted the news with uncomplicated moral revulsion, along the following lines: 1) Elephants are marvelous, beautiful, intelligent animals. 2) Hunting marvelous, beautiful, intelligent animals is always morally wrong. Therefore: 3) Supporting a policy that endorses, or […]
November 17, 2017 – 6:05 pm
Off to see King Crimson at the Beacon Theater tonight. They are a remarkable ensemble, including, among others, two of my favorite drummers, Pat Mastelotto and Gavin Harrison, the great bassist Tony Levin and — sui generis — the Gurdjeffian guitarist and musical innovator Robert Fripp. I’ve never seen them perform, and I’m happy to […]
November 16, 2017 – 11:21 pm
Well! No sooner do I write about how Bill Clinton seems to be gliding smoothly across the surface of our latest moral panic, than prominent Democrats seem suddenly to notice that the man is in fact, as so many of his victims had been trying to tell everyone for decades, a loathsome sexual predator. I […]
November 14, 2017 – 4:13 pm
Over at American Greatness, Roger Kimball explains why he’s given up on Trumpism.
November 13, 2017 – 11:39 pm
Yesterday a the New York Times published an opinion piece by a black academic, one Ekow Yankah. The essay is called Can My Children Be Friends with White People? Professor Yankah’s answer is no, for the reason that black people must assume that every white person is, unless proven otherwise, such a virulent racist as […]
November 13, 2017 – 2:29 pm
It seems that hardly a day goes by lately without the ruination of another prominent man by allegations of sexual misconduct. Somehow, though, Bill Clinton sails along. Can there be any doubt that this blackguard is a sexual predator of the first order? Of course not; the allegations are legion, including a highly plausible accusation […]
November 12, 2017 – 12:32 pm
Once again, here’s the indispensable Andrew McCarthy, former Federal prosecutor, on the Mueller investigation. In his latest essay, he compares it to the way the Obama DOJ handled its investigation of Hillary Clinton. The contrast is instructive, and sorely vexing.
November 11, 2017 – 10:50 pm
Our e-pal Bill Keezer sent along a link today to an essay on climate change by the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson. As it happened I offered a post about this very essay ten years ago, and it’s at least as relevant now as it was then. Have a look. My post is here, and the […]
November 11, 2017 – 3:05 pm
The view out my front window just now (click for larger version): These guys should really pay more attention to the calendar.
November 8, 2017 – 2:56 pm
Back in May we had a problem with server-side caching at Bluehost. The symptom was that commenters would see the comment-box pre-populated with the name and email of whoever had commented last. Please let me know if you see this happening again now. (I will be sorely vexed with Bluehost if so.) To clear the […]
November 8, 2017 – 11:49 am
Worried that our culture is in decline? Relax. In fact, the more you can relax, the less this will hurt.
November 6, 2017 – 9:09 pm
Here’s the future of the automobile, from former GM, Ford, and BMW executive Bob Lutz. I love driving. Glad I got the chance, I guess.
November 5, 2017 – 10:32 pm
The key weakness of liberalism — which, to be fair, has at times done much to improve society — is that it must assume as “given” the existence, and the continuing existence, of the society it hopes to improve. But liberalism, by its very nature — its pacifism, its sentimentalism, its opposition to hierarchy, its […]
November 2, 2017 – 10:44 pm
I enjoyed this very much: Mark Knopfler playing his guitars, and talking about playing guitar. (The clip is hosted at Laughing Squid, where it’s described as Mr. Knopfler giving a “wonderful guided tour of his guitar collection” — but that isn’t what it is at all, as older and wiser readers will understand.) Here.
November 1, 2017 – 4:41 pm
The transgendered have become holy objects because, unlike those of us who are frozen in a conventional relation between our sex and our gender, and are trapped in the matrix of objective and pre-existing natural categories, the transgendered demonstrate the supremacy, and so the apotheosis, of the subjective. In a secular religion that denies the […]