Monthly Archives: June 2023

Ukraine: Update

June 30, 2023 – 10:08 pm

Here’s the latest assessment on the situation in Ukraine, from ~finnem capital: Our latest analysis on the “counteroffensive”: Despite claims that the counteroffensive “has not begun,” in fact, after the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stalled by highly effective strikes on brigade level depots of fuel and munitions, not to mention troop concentrations behind the […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Military, Foreign Affairs | Comments (0)

Separation Anxiety, Cont’d: Michael Anton Replies to “Anonymous”

June 27, 2023 – 5:54 pm

A couple of days ago I posted some commentary on Michael Anton’s recent article on “national divorce”. Asylum magazine has now made available online Michael Anton’s response to an anonymous reader’s critique of his dialogue on the topic of “national divorce”. (You can read it here.) Mr. Anton seems irritated; his rejoinder is titled “How […]

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

Separation Anxiety

June 25, 2023 – 11:53 am

I’ve just read an engaging pair of articles at Asylum magazine: an item by Michael Anton on the possibility of “national divorce”, in which he makes the case for breaking up the United States, and a rebuttal to Anton’s position by an anonymous author. (You can read Michael Anton’s original post here, and the response […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (10)

Fog

June 24, 2023 – 12:47 pm

What the hell’s going on in Russia? From the breathless coverage, you’d think it was a straight-up Wagner mutiny against MoD, with Prigozhin playing the role of Caesar, and already well across the Rubicon. But my sources (and I have some good ones) say that is way too pat. Yes, this is Russia, so sometimes […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs | Comments (4)

Coming Apart

June 24, 2023 – 12:22 am

When societies are cohesive enough to be in good health, they argue about means; when they become dangerously disintegrated, they argue about ends.

By Malcolm | Posted in Apophthegmata | Comments (0)

Stewardship

June 20, 2023 – 1:31 pm

My local paper, the Provincetown Independent, recently featured an item about the construction of a wetu in Truro, the village next door to my own here in the Outer Cape. What is a “wetu”? It’s a small wood-framed structure, “built to withstand Cape Cod’s elements”, that was the traditional dwelling of Cape Cod’s indigenous Wampanoag […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Cape Cod | Comments (5)

Coming Apart

June 19, 2023 – 12:07 pm

When “anything goes”, everything does.

By Malcolm | Posted in Apophthegmata | Comments (1)

This Is The Hell We Are Building For Ourselves

June 15, 2023 – 7:50 pm

Get a load of this.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology, Reaction, Society and Culture | Comments (7)

Theodore Kaczynski, 1942-2023

June 14, 2023 – 3:11 pm

I ought to have noted the death, last Saturday, of the mathematician and terrorist Theodore “Unabomber” Kaczynski, who died last Saturday at the age of 81. From Wikipedia: He was a mathematics prodigy, but abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a primitive lifestyle. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski murdered three individuals and injured […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Reaction | Comments (2)

As I Was Saying…

June 13, 2023 – 11:55 pm

For years now I’ve been writing, in these pages, about a few points that I think are central to understanding the decline of American — and, more broadly, Western — society and culture. (I might as well have been yelling up a drainpipe, for all the good it’s done, but at least I’ve been trying.) […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General, Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy, Religion, Reaction | Comments (2)

Service Notice

June 10, 2023 – 11:38 pm

Sorry for the scanty content; I’m away on one of my musical retreats with the Shoal Survivors. Back this week, with plenty to talk about.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

OK, Pandemic’s Over. What Next?

June 5, 2023 – 10:59 pm

I wonder where this story is headed. (Commenter “JK”, call your office…)

By Malcolm | Posted in Curiosities | Comments (5)

Signal And Noise

June 1, 2023 – 12:34 pm

Here’s a pithy little item about uncertainties in climate-change modeling.

By Malcolm | Posted in Global Warming | Comments (0)