Next time you hear someone refer to carbon dioxide as a “pollutant”, mention this: Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds Carbon dioxide is plant food. Plants eat carbon dioxide, make human food, and release oxygen. Humans breathe oxygen, eat plants, and release carbon dioxide. Simple and elegant.
From John Hirschauer at National Review: “More Men Die, But Women Bear The Brunt“.
This Corona-chan crisis has been an excellent experiment in determining just how much we are willing to imprison and fetter ourselves to avoid danger. Our prolonged interval of peace and prosperity since the Second World War — our isolation from the hormesis of what, throughout history, have been regular calamities and stresses — has made […]
Here’s a sharp little item on the miscalculation of risk.
Over at American Greatness yesterday, Mackubin Owens has written a short piece entitled ‘Pandemic Is Shining a Light on the American Character‘. Indeed it has. There have of course been many Americans who have shown great courage in manning their stations, and keeping necessary infrastructure working, despite personal risk. Had it not been for them, […]
Two motives must be kept in mind as we debate public policy regarding this lockdown: First, elected politicians have one universal and overriding priority, which is to preserve their seats, and so to minimize short-term public risk. If they are faced with a choice between, say, liberty and security, they will consistently, and quite naturally, […]
In a press-conference today Governor Andrew Cuomo twice referred to the current pandemic as “the European virus”. I am old and experienced, and expect nothing but lies and deception from politicians generally, and Democrats in particular, but even by contemporary Blue-Team standards this is stunningly audacious. Everybody — everybody! — knows this thing did not […]
We owe a debt of gratitude to a handful of journalists who have worked for years now to keep the true story of the Russiagate scandal (now trending as #Obamagate) in public view: Mollie Hemingway, Andrew McCarthy, Lee Smith, Sharyl Attkisson, John Batchelor, and a few others. Over the last several days new information has […]
The apt metaphor, I think, for what we have done to ourselves in response to this virus is the tourniquet. Leave it on too long and gangrene sets in. You can watch your own body begin to die and rot and stink. “Ah, but it’s just a limb,” you say. “It’s worth losing a limb […]
It’s Mothers’ Day. Here was mine. I miss her.
Longtime readers will have noticed the lack of substantial content here recently – just little odds and ends, mostly. It’s mostly the Groundhog-Day monotony of this new life: the days, and the news they bring, never vary much. There is very little vitality or energy in the air, or on the air — just the […]
Here’s something beautiful, from a visual artist by the name of Tobias Gremmler. Watch in full-screen.
Here’s another item over the transom from our e-pal Bill K. — a software engineer’s look at the modeling software that was relied upon to shut down the West. (As a former C++ developer myself, I can say that it sounds awfully bad.)
The big news today is the vindication of General Flynn, but there was another heartening local item as well: a federal judge has blocked Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker’s executive order keeping gun shops closed. Today, U.S. Judge Douglas P. Woodlock issued a preliminary injunction to prevent Massachusetts from enforcing the unlawful order. “We don’t surrender […]
Wonderful news, just in: the DOJ has dropped the case against Michael Flynn. The prosecution, which had no basis in law and will be judged by history as part of a political scandal without rival in the modern era, began to fall apart last week after recently revealed documents revealed the enormity of the FBI’s […]
Our e-pal Bill K. sent along the following updated parable this morning: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER This one is a little different … Two Different Versions … Two Different Morals OLD VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat […]
Here are the latest Wuhan Red Death stats from the CDC. The page shows the week-by week numbers since the beginning of the outbreak. As of May 1st, the revised U.S. total is 37,308. Enjoy your new economy.
It’s becoming clearer every day that Michael Flynn’s persecution was a nothing more than a politically motivated frame-up (many of us have known this for ages, but in the past week documents have come to light that make it irrefutable). But why Flynn? Andrew McCarthy gives us the reason: he was a liability to the […]
Here’s the question that interviewers should be putting to governors: “If, in normal times, you were to announce as a matter of executive fiat that people must close their businesses, could not assemble in groups over a certain size, and must stay home except for travel you deem essential, it would seem an absurdity. People […]
In times of crisis, it’s important to do what we can. One of the ways good citizens have responded to our current health emergency has been by sewing their own protective face-masks. Given that many of you, I’m sure, would find it easier to shove a camel through the eye of a needle than to […]
April 27, 2020 – 10:29 pm
Like so many other musicians, during this enforced quarantine I’ve been collaborating online with my pals. In my case it’s the group of talented players and singers I get together with every September for a musical retreat out in the Isles of Shoals. I put up a mix a little while back of one of […]
April 25, 2020 – 12:39 pm
I’ve been a bit neglectful of the blog lately. Life is beginning to feel a bit like Groundhog Day, with few new impressions to think or write about (other than the books I’ve been reading in the evenings the past couple of weeks, which I’m still digesting). I’ve been spending a lot of time down […]
April 19, 2020 – 11:41 pm
Just to take our minds off the Wuhan Red Death for a moment, here’s some music you might enjoy. The piece is called Spirit Moves, and it’s the opening track from Vince Mendoza’s album Instructions Inside, which I recorded and mixed back in March of 1991. We did the sessions at Edison Recording in midtown […]
April 17, 2020 – 12:39 pm
Our reader the indefatigable JK has introduced me to a blogger I’d never heard of: B.J. Campbell, whose posts are collected under the title Handwaving Freakoutery. The post that JK sent me today is about the possible consequences for social order of this ongoing (and, increasingly, arguably unconstitutional) lockdown. It begins with an amusing roundup […]
Former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey published a brief item today about the cost, in human life, of this indiscriminate shutdown of the American economy. A key excerpt: Job losses cause extreme suffering. Every 1% hike in the unemployment rate will likely produce a 3.3% increase in drug overdose deaths and a 0.99% increase […]
The criticism of President Trump’s response to the Wuhan Red Death has been all over the map; in general whatever he does is wrong, regardless of whether Blue politicians have done the same or worse in their own bailiwicks, and whatever he doesn’t do is a crime of omission. He’s been faulted at every step […]
April 13, 2020 – 12:49 pm
I’ve previously mentioned the musical retreat I enjoy each September in the far-flung Isles of Shoals. I get together with an eclectic assortment of musicians (both pros and civilians), and we have a fine time as the house band for all the people enjoying Star Island‘s final conference of the year. With this global panic […]
April 13, 2020 – 11:57 am
When I get older, losing my hair Many years from now… Or, as it happens, today. My, how time does fly when you’re having fun. As always: natal salutations to Guy Fawkes, Thomas Jefferson, F.W. Woolworth, James Ensor, Butch Cassidy, Sir Arthur “Bomber’ Harris, Robert Watson-Watt, Samuel Beckett, Harold Stassen, Stanislaw Ulam, Eudora Welty, Howard […]
Yesterday was this year’s “Pink Moon”. Here’s a lovely song by that name, from the long-departed Nick Drake.
From the Babylon Bee: Bernie Sanders Drops Out As Campaign Goals Of Locking Everyone Up, Destroying Economy Already Achieved Full story here.
I was very sorry to learn this morning that John Prine has died of the Chinese coronavirus. He was a truly gifted songwriter, and made his gift a gift to us all. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I will never forget seeing him perform in Princeton’s Alexander Hall on April 1st, […]
Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of this Wuhan-virus emergency is how clearly it reveals the breadth and depth of the great fissure dividing the nation. In times of crisis, families set aside their internal squabbles: Me and my brother We fight with each other But woe betide The guy from outside. When the towers fell […]
Curtis Yarvin (whose erstwhile nom de plume “Mencius Moldbug” we will, for the time being, continue to mention), has posted a new essay calling for a temporary dictatorship to combat the Wuhan coronavirus. After a discussion of the many, many shortcomings, weaknesses, and debilities of our national government, and of democracy in general — which […]
Just to remind you, readers, as you contemplate the millenarian tableau unfolding before us: yes, there is also a comet. (Of course.)
March 30, 2020 – 12:31 pm
I’ll confess that all this self-isolation has hardly been difficult for me. I’m a homebody by nature anyway, and having an excuse not to go anywhere suits me fine. I’ve been reading a lot, walking in the woods, cooking, and spending a lot of time on various musical projects downstairs in the studio. One thing […]
In response to Friday’s post about the different emotional reactions of Democrats and Republicans to the Wuhan-virus pandemic, our longtime commenter, the indefatigable JK, posted a link to a thoughtful essay on the topic. I though it worth promoting to a post of its own, so here it is.
March 27, 2020 – 12:23 pm
Make of this what you will:
With a hat-tip to our pal Bill Keezer, here’s a rumination by Victor Davis Hanson on the challenge facing Donald Trump in the coming weeks and months.
March 25, 2020 – 11:09 pm
As a person with a long career in the music biz, I am often asked who I think is interesting, and worth giving a listen (keeping in mind that there is a lot of interesting music out there that most people simply wouldn’t “get”). I often mention King Crimson, because Fripp and company have maintained […]
March 23, 2020 – 11:22 pm
Kind of a slow news day today, but here are a couple of items: First, we’ve all heard that things seems to be getting better in China, with Wuhan-virus deaths tapering off. We’ve heard it, that is, but we also know that the Chinese government, which lies about everything, is almost certainly lying about this […]
March 22, 2020 – 11:18 pm
I’m coming increasingly to the conclusion that our reaction to this Wuhan virus, if it keeps the economy comatose for any appreciable length of time, will do more damage than anything the disease itself might have wrought. On the more benign end of the scale, we have at minimum a crisis that has already been […]
People have been likening the economic devastation caused by this health crisis to the effects of war. Here’s a thought that occurred to me today: in the aftermath of wars (or other great disasters), a major part of the economic recovery consists of rebuilding all the infrastructure that’s been destroyed. (After World War II, the […]
March 20, 2020 – 11:24 pm
The great Black Swan of our age has alighted upon our shores, and it catches us at the end of a great historical anomaly: an era of peace, safety and prosperity of such uncommon length that most of us have never known anything else. (This goes a long way, as I’ve argued elsewhere, to explaining […]
A young person, someone I am very fond of and have known for many years, wrote me today with a harsh assessment of Donald Trump, surprised and disappointed that I would defend such a man against some of the charges recently leveled against him in the press. Mr. Trump, in my correspondent’s opinion, is “a […]
Here’s a brief video from an infectious-disease specialist. Well worth watching.
Having survived our trip to Charleston (a beautiful place, as we expected), we are now hunkered down in the remote precincts of our little peninsula in the North Atlantic. Self-isolation comes naturally to me. Confining myself to the basement music studio, a comfy chair with a book to read, and contemplative hikes in the nearby […]
March 11, 2020 – 12:00 pm
The lovely Nina and I are off to Charleston, SC for a few days. (We’d heard it’s nice, so we thought we’d go and see for ourselves.) Back next week.
March 11, 2020 – 11:58 am
Over at American Greatness, Chris Buskirk discusses what Wuhan coronavirus should teach us about self-reliance. Here.
March 10, 2020 – 11:36 pm
How about that Joe Biden? Two weeks ago — just two weeks! — he was all washed up. Now he’s the last man standing. Amazing. The problem, though, is that nobody really thinks he is fit for purpose. His accelerating slide into a pitiable and disqualifying caducity is increasingly plain to see, every time he […]