Monthly Archives: May 2019

The Scottish Verdict

May 30, 2019 – 10:38 am

In a brief, fork-tongued statement yesterday, the august Robert Mueller got a lot done: he let slip his naked partisanship, jettisoned the bedrock principle of American jurisprudence, ensured that the U.S. government will for the rest of Donald Trump’s first term be paralyzed by bitter factional conflict, and fanned the coals of a smoldering civil […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)

Over There

May 27, 2019 – 1:14 pm

The ground is shifting in Europe: nationalist parties, including Nigel Farage’s nascent Brexit Party, gained a lot of ground in the recent EU elections. Meanwhile, though, the Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz — who is routinely described as “far right”, despite being nothing more than a patriot who takes seriously any government’s duty to act as […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (5)

Is America A ‘Proposition Nation’?

May 26, 2019 – 11:39 pm

Yesterday our friend Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, commented on a 2018 column by Mackubin Thomas Owens about kinds of nationalism. Mr. Owens says that American nationalism is good and necessary because it is of the right sort: an allegiance only to a set of philosophical principles. Bill singled out this passage: Much of today’s […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics, Immigration, HBD | Comments (2)

Le Panier De Déplorables

May 25, 2019 – 1:25 pm

Here’s European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker’s opinion of the little people: June 6th will mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (2)

Conservation Of Entropy, Part 2

May 21, 2019 – 11:57 pm
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Conservation of Entropy

Is it possible to balance order and entropy in complex societies while maintaining vitality and avoiding sclerosis and stasis? If we look at societies as living systems, they must maintain a dynamic, not static, equilibrium: to sustain life, energy must flow through them without disturbing the complex balance of internal parts and subsystems. They must […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Ruminations | Comments (1)

Conservation Of Entropy

May 16, 2019 – 1:41 pm
This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Conservation of Entropy

I note two related items in the media today: one is this story, about introducing a new “adversity score” to the Scholastic Aptitude Test, and the other is this essay, by Heather Mac Donald, about the poor performance of “diversity hires” in elite law-firms. The link between them, is, of course, an unfortunate truth, previously […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Ruminations, Society and Culture | Comments (2)

Perspective

May 15, 2019 – 12:53 pm

It’s a truism that older people always think things are going to hell — but it’s only older people that actually have something to compare the present to.

By Malcolm | Posted in Apophthegmata | Comments (2)

Racist Thing #108

May 14, 2019 – 1:06 pm

Farming.

By Malcolm | Posted in Racist Things | Comments (3)

The Suffering Of The Innocent

May 14, 2019 – 11:56 am
This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Pilgrim's Progress

My friend Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, has a new post up on what I consider the most difficult challenge to belief in God: the arbitrary suffering that is such a conspicuous feature of the world that He created and sustains. How could a God that combines the triple perfections of omniscience, omnipotence, and absolute […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Religion | Comments (12)

Miss You, Mom

May 12, 2019 – 4:22 pm

It’s Mother’s Day, so I will take a moment to remember my own mother Alison, now thirteen years gone. Here’s what I wrote about her just after she died.

By Malcolm | Posted in Alison | Comments (1)

There And Back Again

May 12, 2019 – 4:17 pm

We’re back in the States after our whirlwind trip to Vienna. The expedition was a success: Lily, who turned ninety-eight today, bore up well, though it was exhausting for her. She was glad to visit her hometown one last time, and although she is almost completely blind, she enjoyed being taken around to some old […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

Service Notice

May 4, 2019 – 1:21 pm

The lovely Nina and I will be away for a week. The Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna has mounted an exhibit featuring three artists who fled Vienna as the Nazis took over, and one of the three — the only one surviving — is my mother-in-law Lily, who has lived in New York […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (7)

“An Extraordinary Legal Defect”

May 3, 2019 – 2:36 pm

In the news today is a scathing letter from Emmett Flood, the Special Counsel to the President, to Attorney General William Barr. It was written on April 19th, shortly after the lightly redacted Mueller Report was released to the public. The Mueller Report may have produced no indictments, but this letter charges the Mueller team […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics, Law | Comments (4)