November 27, 2024 – 11:47 am
Enjoy the holiday, everybody. We have much to be thankful for this year.
November 25, 2024 – 11:10 am
Former General Mike Flynn — who knows a thing or two about what the entrenched Washington oligarchy is capable of, and willing to do — has posted a threat-assessment of the risks we face between now and Inauguration Day. Read it here.
November 23, 2024 – 3:50 pm
Following on my previous — and alarmist — post about AI, I think I should add some further remarks about what may or may not be possible. Back in 2014 I wrote a post, as part of a linked series on free will and determinism, about the idea of what the English scientist Stephen Wolfram […]
November 21, 2024 – 5:18 pm
Here is a link to a detailed survey of the current status of AI research, including a clear-eyed assessment of what we should expect in the near future. I won’t lie: I find this extremely alarming. The linked report makes it very clear that we are just a few years away from creating entities that […]
November 20, 2024 – 2:59 pm
RFK on Ukraine: Robert F. Kennedy Jr EXPOSES the TRUTH about Ukraine in 3 minutes. Make the World Safe again pic.twitter.com/T8Vpeyw2Io — Marjorie Taylor Greene Press Release (Parody) (@MTGrepp) November 20, 2024
November 19, 2024 – 1:22 pm
In the runup to the election I said how worried I was about rising conflict between the two warring American social and political factions once the winner had been determined. I thought it likely, barring massive fraud, that Trump would win, and I thought that if that happened the seething Left would stage massive chimpouts […]
November 17, 2024 – 11:57 am
Elon Musk has made no secret, over the past several years, of his ambition to colonize Mars (and if anyone can pull it off, he can). With that in mind, here’s something remarkable that I just learned today: Those of you of a “certain age” will remember the name Werner von Braun — a former […]
November 16, 2024 – 4:54 pm
In a comment to our previous post, our friend “Whitewall” observed that in the wake of the recent election, the Dems “currently overcome with a case of raging hormones, like before … just worse now.” Indeed they are. On the bright side, though, we can be thankful for X: I’m crying pic.twitter.com/JtG3ldaumh — Not Jerome […]
November 16, 2024 – 10:42 am
We’re back from our eight-day visit to Rome. Glad to see the U.S. still standing. Did I miss anything?
November 8, 2024 – 10:44 am
Dear Democrats, Four years ago, you took the keys to the family car. Did you drive it with care and respect? No. You got high as a kite and took it for a crazy, reckless joyride, without any consideration for the damage you were causing. From bumper to bumper – border security, immigration, foreign policy, […]
November 5, 2024 – 5:46 pm
Tomorrow, just as the reverberations of today’s election begin to ripple around the globe, the lovely Nina and I are heading off to the Eternal City for a long-postponed visit. I might find time to post something or other, but if not, I should be back in harness here in about ten days. (As for […]
November 3, 2024 – 6:41 pm
By now you’ve probably heard about the sad end of P’Nut the Squirrel, who, during his brief time on Earth, lived in happy and playful companionship with a fellow named Mark Longo (who had rescued the wee rodent after its mother had been squashed by a car). As their relationship blossomed, Mr. Longo had made […]
October 31, 2024 – 12:04 pm
I have been presenting for years, in these pages, a charge against the Enlightenment: namely that it enshrined, with religious fervor, a radical skepticism that acted as a kind of “universal acid” that no tradition or social order could contain. In 2022, for example, I referred to: …the radical skepsis of the Enlightenment, which simultaneously […]
October 30, 2024 – 2:06 pm
“As a child, learn good manners, As a young man, control the passions, In middle age, be just, In old age, give good advice, Then die, without regret.” – Inscription found in the Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum in Afghanistan. Attributed to Clearchus of Soli, a student of Aristotle
October 30, 2024 – 1:04 pm
Over the past few years, prominent members of our ruling Democrat oligarchy have declared those of us not aligned with “progressivism” to be racists, sexists, white supremacists, bitter clingers to guns and religion, deplorables, irredeemables, Nazis, and Fascists. Last night, we learned, also, that our sitting President thinks of us as “garbage”. That’s at least […]
October 27, 2024 – 1:20 pm
The problem with the way our era looks at history is that all it wants is to barge in and speak to the manager.
October 26, 2024 – 4:40 pm
The following is a repost of an essay I published at American Greatness in October 2020. Four years on, I think it holds up fairly well, but its closing remarks about the Constitution need, I’m afraid, some further qualifications, which I have added at the bottom of the post. Not a day goes by lately […]
October 25, 2024 – 5:14 pm
Prior to the takeover of U.S. foreign policy by Progressive world-savers, American statecraft followed the wise course plotted by George Washington and John Quincy Adams: to refrain from meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations, and to avoid being drawn into their external quarrels, whether by treaty or simple ambition. Adams (who was arguably […]
October 24, 2024 – 9:50 pm
Eric Hoffer: A minority is in a precarious position, however protected it be by law or force. The frustration engendered by the unavoidable sense of insecurity is less intense in a minority intent on preserving its identity than in one bent upon dissolving in and blending with the majority. A minority which preserves its identity […]
October 20, 2024 – 12:08 am
In a pair of posts at Substack and his own website, Bill Vallicella revisits a conversation he and I had a couple of years ago about the shrinkage of circles of moral inclusion in periods of deep political strife. I had commented on this passage of his: …haven’t the barbarians forfeited their (normative) humanity to […]
October 18, 2024 – 6:28 pm
Yesterday I sat at a dinner event with some members of our ruling overclass, including a wealthy and powerful septuagenarian Washington lawyer and her husband, a D.C.-area doctor and hospital administrator. (I will not name names, but we are talking about the very highest levels of swamp creatures here. If I had been carrying an […]
October 14, 2024 – 5:12 pm
There was a time when human capabilities formed a continuous landscape. Rising from the plain were such towering prominences such as language, art, reason, literature, musical composition, science, mathematics, and so on. Now, however, artificial intelligence is like a rising tide, inundating the terrain. Even now, with AI only in its infancy, the lower elevations […]
October 13, 2024 – 12:00 pm
This is what we’re up against, folks. (You can almost smell the sulfur.) Raddatz: "The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes… A handful!"@JDVance: "Do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes were taken over by Venezuelan gangs and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris' open border?" ? […]
October 11, 2024 – 7:38 pm
I’ve just finished an excellent book by Auron MacIntyre, an up-and-coming voice on the Right. It’s called The Total State, and it is well worth your time. MacIntyre is emerging as an influential political analyst and public intellectual, with a job at The Blaze and a regular output of podcasts and videos. (His YouTube channel […]
October 3, 2024 – 12:56 pm
A quick review of my comment policy: WordPress, the software I use, provides a comment-moderation feature that blocks all incoming comments until they are approved by me. I’ve never switched it on; I’ve been fortunate, over the decades, never to have felt the need. After 6,766 posts, and 28,888 comments, I’ve only ever removed a […]
October 2, 2024 – 4:09 pm
Last weekend we went to Chicago for a wedding. We flew round-trip from Boston, on American Airlines. Our departing flight was scheduled for 2:13 p.m. on Friday. We checked a bag and went to the gate, but just before we were to board, we were told that our aircraft, a Boeing 737, was having some […]
September 26, 2024 – 7:01 pm
By now you have probably heard that Eric Adams, the glabrous black ex-cop who is (for now) Mayor of New York, is under multiple indictments for various acts of political corruption involving bribery and foreign influence, the culmination of a probe that has over the past couple of months swept up a number of his […]
September 23, 2024 – 12:16 am
As are all of our days. (Woody Allen once asked why they should be numbered, and not lettered.) Today, though, as it happens — on September 23rd, 2024 — the number of my days is a nice round one: exactly 25,000. It’s been a bit of a slog at times, and I’m well out of […]
September 19, 2024 – 1:33 pm
Here are the results of a recent survey conducted by Scott Rasmussen’s Napolitan News Service: Seventeen percent (17%) of voters believe America would have been better off if former President Trump had been killed in last week’s attempted assassination. That figure includes 28% of Democrats who say that America would have been better off if […]
September 15, 2024 – 8:19 pm
Another day, another insane violent leftist bent on partisan violence. (I refer, of course, to today’s foiled attempt to assassinate Donald Trump — the second in two months.) Say what you like about Carl Schmitt, but the man had a keen eye for the truths of human nature. I’ve posted this quote before, but it […]
September 13, 2024 – 1:44 pm
Steve Sailer’s latest over at Substack is a look at why Haiti is so stubbornly dysfunctional. Steve mentions in passing a thing that is surely an important factor, rarely mentioned over here in discussions of U.S. immigration policy: when a place falls below comfortable levels of safety and prosperity, those who are able to — […]
September 11, 2024 – 11:19 am
I have taken down yesterday’s item — a thing I’ve only ever done once or twice in the twenty-year history of this blog — about the effect of a rapid influx of Haitians to the small town of Springfield, Ohio. Although I stand by the gist of the post, which was that mass immigration from […]
September 8, 2024 – 10:08 pm
This, folks, is moral clarity. Good commentary also by the Tweeter, @orenbarsky. This clip of @DouglasKMurray on @PiersUncensored has been circulating online, and I imagine many of you have seen it by now (if not, it’s worth watching). For this reason, I won’t address his comments directly, but rather focus on a hidden meaning within […]
September 7, 2024 – 7:22 pm
Well, August is over, Labor Day has come and gone (and with it the annual four-day gathering and concert series of the Shoal Survivors, the musical collective I’ve been a member of for a decade now), and I really should try to get this blog up and running again. I’ve been in a slump for […]
I note with sorrow and anger that Letitia James’ brutal and villainous campaign of lawfare against VDare has succeeded at last, with Peter and Lydia Brimelow, despite mounting a heroic effort that cost them millions, now having suspended the patriotic website’s operations. It should be increasingly obvious to all by now — given the suspicious […]
“There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” – Lenin As I write, Joe Biden has yet to be seen in public following his fishy letter of abdication. Rumors are spreading that he may be dying, or even already dead. As Moldbug remarked in a post today: There is simply […]
In light of today’s events it seems timely to repost this item from January. Still almost half of 2024 to go, folks, and the caldera is rising. P.S. Having now seen footage of Mr. Trump’s female Secret Service detail dithering in panicky confusion (and seemingly unable, in their agitation, even to holster their weapons properly), […]
I know I said I wasn’t likely to be posting for a bit, but this clip of Tucker Carlson tossing and goring Australian media soldiers was too good not to share. Meet the Australian media. pic.twitter.com/IyiEqihPkb — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 26, 2024
Note: I’ve just edited this post; what I’d written here yesterday was way too dark. It’s probably going to be very slow here at the blog for the next few weeks. I’ve got kids and grandkids about to arrive who will be with us through July, and I won’t have much time for brooding and […]
Pressure is building as we head into the summer and fall. I wonder what’s coming. Some possibilities: 1) Despite Joe Biden’s now-undeniable caducity and incapacity, the people running the show keep him on, and do what’s necessary to claim a victory in November. (We know they will do whatever they think they can get away […]
In his “Finest Hour” speech of June 18th, 1940 — eighty-four years and two days ago — Winston Churchill warned of “the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.” With news now appearing of the widening spread of the deadly H5N1 virus, there’s […]
Happy Fathers’ Day to all you dads out there. The question often comes up: “what is best in life?” When Conan the Cimmerian was asked this, he gave what is certainly a plausible answer: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” While perfectly reasonable, this […]
The Muse is silent for the moment, I’m afraid. (There’s plenty to comment on — this outrage, for example — but I’d have little to add but splenetic grumbling, so I won’t bother.) Back soon. I’ve been digesting some substantial reading lately, and expect I’ll have something to say about all of that.
Fans of Western civilization got a bit of heartening news today: huge electoral wins all over Europe for “far-right” parties. (In case you aren’t familiar with the lingo, “far-right” means, among other things, “in favor of preserving the ancient cultures of Europe against the mass invasion of their homelands”.) In particular, Macron and Scholz took […]
In a recent essay, Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains Yuri Bezmenov’s theory of subversion, and calls our attention to how advanced the disease is here in the West. (Hat-tip to BV.) I expect Bezmenov’s analysis, and the diagnosis given in this essay, will be old news to most of my readers, but it’s a good essay, […]
I see in the news today that New Jersey is now certifying businesses owned by gay and transsexual people, in order to privilege them for grants of taxpayer money, give them favored status for state contracts, and bestow other preferences. (The same thing is also routinely done for non-whites, as well as females, in most […]
Over at Bill Vallicella’s place, I’ve expressed in several comment-threads my increasing lack of enthusiasm for democracy — a disaffection that has increased in proportion to the fetishization of “Our Democracy!” in political discourse and propaganda. To listen to it all, you’d think that Democracy is somehow an end in itself, the founding principle of […]
I’m away for the weekend – a recording session and live gig with the Shoal Survivors. Back soon.