October 16, 2018 – 5:55 pm
From Boston Dynamics: Haha, just some harmless fun, right? Now watch this:
October 16, 2018 – 5:14 pm
A fascinating aerial-photography collection. Here.
October 14, 2018 – 12:01 am
…around here, anyway. I’ve been offline, mostly, for the past few days, and paying little attention to the news. I did see that there was a brouhaha of some sort between Antifa and Gavin McInness’s “Proud Boys” in New York City today, but I don’t know more than that, and can’t really be bothered to […]
October 10, 2018 – 3:08 pm
Victor Davis Hanson has been everywhere, lately, it seems, and he has been writing at a tremendous clip. (I don’t know how a man of his years can maintain such a pace.) Here’s a jeremiad of his, from a couple of weeks ago, that I’d overlooked until now: Epitaph for a Dying Culture. (There’s nothing […]
October 9, 2018 – 10:45 am
On Saturday, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Alexis Grenell, a Democrat strategist. Had it run even a few years ago, the language it contains would have been shocking; now the piece is only another example of how far that paper (and with it, American culture) has declined. The essay, written under […]
October 8, 2018 – 11:09 am
Well, the IPCC has released another terrifying report on the climate crisis. This time, we’ve got 12 years to make “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. Or we’re all doomed. This ultimatum is nothing new: we’ve had a decade or so to act before reaching some catastrophic “tipping point” for a […]
October 6, 2018 – 9:43 pm
We won. Not the war, which is just beginning. But we won this battle. Take a moment to savor the victory. Let us also praise two unlikely heroes of this campaign: Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham. Who knew? War brings out the best and the worst in men. I commend them for their valor.
October 6, 2018 – 11:50 am
I heard someone reading a favorite Rudyard Kipling poem on the radio just now. (Looking back from 2018, it’s hard to believe that Kipling could even have really existed. He is one of many reminders that, unfortunately, to look backward is often to look steeply upward.) If you can keep your head when all about […]
October 5, 2018 – 1:34 pm
There’s been a lot of excellent commentary on the Kavanaugh carnage from, to hijack a phrase from an erstwhile commenter of ours, “the adults in the room”. Here’s a sampling (with a hat-tip to Bill Keezer for sme of these links): First up, we have former senator Tom Coburn, who identifies as a root of […]
October 4, 2018 – 11:36 pm
Well, the FBI report is in. Unsurprisingly, it contains nothing new. (If it had contained any damaging evidence against Brett Kavanaugh, the Democrats would have leaked it. If, on the other hand, it had contained some exculpatory evidence — which, given the lack of any specifics in the Ford allegation as regards time and place, […]
October 3, 2018 – 2:18 pm
I’d have thought that old recording engineers, like old soldiers, “never die – they just fade away.” It isn’t so. I note with sorrow the death of Geoff Emerick, who punched out yesterday at age 72. He was a towering — preeminent — figure in our arcane craft, and when he took over as The […]
October 2, 2018 – 10:17 pm
Still very busy here, I’m afraid. I’ve also got little to add to the big story of the moment, which is of course the Kavanaugh appointment. There’s nothing subtle or nuanced about any of it; it’s just raw combat, and everyone knows it. So what can I say? (New things do keep popping up, though.) […]
September 29, 2018 – 12:04 am
Now Twitter has suspended my all-time favorite account, the brilliant and eccentric @ThomasWictor. How intensely irritating. Update, 9/29: Now @hbdchick (who is the very soul of reason and moderation) is gone too! (Her blog, which is effectively an online university, is here.)
September 28, 2018 – 3:46 pm
Things are moving more quickly now. Let’s review the status of our three branches of government: After Donald Trump’s shocking defeat of Hillary Clinton, the losing side has done everything in its power to delegitimize his administration — from trying to co-opt the Electoral College in the early weeks, to a ginned-up story about Russian […]
September 27, 2018 – 6:57 pm
You’ve probably seen it by now, but here’s Lindsey Graham at today’s hearing. I’ve never been much of a fan of the man, to put it mildly — but this new, red-pilled Lindsey Graham is something else again.
September 24, 2018 – 10:38 pm
I’m very sorry never to have really got back up to speed after the August break. The blog is still very much alive, but the Muse unusually silent, and it has been a very busy and chaotic time the past few weeks. Currently we are in Chicago for a couple of days, and there will […]
September 23, 2018 – 10:46 pm
This is war. Vote. — Malcolm Pollack (@mtpollack) September 24, 2018
September 20, 2018 – 9:18 pm
At Newcomb Hollow Beach this afternoon: (If you hadn’t heard, Mr. Medici, 26, was fatally attacked a week ago by one of the great white sharks that have recently made our part of Cape Cod their home.)
September 19, 2018 – 5:09 pm
In the latest ploy to stall the Kavanaugh appointment until after the midterm elections, the Democrats have arranged for Mr. Kavanuagh’s accuser, Christine Ford, to demand that the FBI investigate her claim before she will consent to provide any testimony. This is ridiculous, of course: the FBI exists to investigate federal crimes, not decades-old recovered […]
September 19, 2018 – 4:24 pm
About a year ago, I wrote this: Our attention, which is more precious than gold, and the one thing we must master if we are to have any hope at all of inner development, is increasingly spent in a virtual world created, manipulated, and harvested by a few increasingly powerful companies. (Note that we “pay’ […]
September 17, 2018 – 10:54 pm
As the Democrats launch a desperate last-ditch offensive against Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, the president, in a flanking maneuver, has declassified an assortment of records — FISA applications, Strzok-Page texts, and whole lot more — that may be of considerable importance in exposing the real scandal in Washington: the weaponization of government agencies, by […]
September 14, 2018 – 2:53 pm
Our friend Bill Vallicella explores the tension — which he believes is a fruitful one — between Athens and Jerusalem. Why is such a tension — an essential feature of Christianity, with its mysteries and paradoxes, that is conspicuously absent in Islam — fruitful? It is a fruitful tension in the West but also in […]
September 11, 2018 – 1:49 pm
Here is a remarkable video clip of the center of Hurricane Florence.
September 10, 2018 – 4:56 pm
Well, I’m back from our annual musical retreat in the Isles of Shoals, but I’m completely exhausted. (We get up early, spend the days organizing and rehearsing, then play for the rest of the folks on the island from cocktail hour until the “wee small hours of the morning”. Getting more than about four or […]
September 6, 2018 – 2:08 pm
Returning from a month of happy isolation and indifference to the news, I see that we’ve been slipping ever deeper into bitter factional strife, if not yet (quite) outright war. The Kavanaugh hearings, which I had on in the background as I worked these past two days, are an obvious and dispiriting example. A steady […]
September 4, 2018 – 1:15 pm
It’s September, and after a restful summer break, it’s time to start getting back to normal operations around here. (There’s been a lot to talk about.) The next few days are busy ones, though: I’ll be working long hours today and tomorrow, and from Friday until Monday I’ll be on remote and rocky Star Island […]
August 23, 2018 – 1:07 pm
From our reader and commenter “Whitewall” comes a link to an excellent piece by Richard Fernandez: a review of Michael Walsh’s new book, The Fiery Angel. (Mr. Walsh’s previous book, The Devil’s Pleasure Palace, is excellent, and I recommend it to you all.) What struck me in particular as I read Mr. Fernandez’s review was […]
August 9, 2018 – 12:09 pm
Did you hear about this? Didn’t think so.
August 5, 2018 – 12:36 pm
In a recent post our friend Bill Vallicella sticks to his guns regarding what he considers the “mistake” of looking at the missionary leftism of the modern West as a religion. He prefers to use the alienans expression “ersatz religion” to describe it, while I’ve said all along that it really is a religion — […]
Once again we call your attention to the ongoing conversation between John Batchelor and historian Michael Vlahos on the darkening clouds of civil war. You can find all of these podcast episodes here.
Once again, it’s August, and the weather here in the Outer Cape is warm and sultry. Suddenly, swimming my daily mile in Wellfleet’s clear glacial kettle-ponds, gathering and consuming our renowned oysters, gazing at the blue horizon, and slowly working my way through a swelling backlog of books (including Thomas West’s book about the Founding) […]
August 1, 2018 – 10:47 pm
A reader has sent me this link, to a blog dedicated to what has come to be known as “pizzagate”. I present it without comment, for now at least.
August 1, 2018 – 10:36 am
Here’s a fine meditation, by Bill Vallicella, on the tension between reason and faith, and what it means for the philosopher who is also a Christian.
I’ve just read a brief interview with Sir Roger Scruton over at National Review. (Hat-tip to our friend David Duff.) This caught my eye: [Interviewer Madeleine Kearns]: What is the difference between a reactionary and a conservative? SRS: A reactionary is fixed on the past and wanting to return to it; a conservative wishes to […]
With a hat-tip to the Maverick Philosopher, here’s an essay by Bruce Thornton arguing that we might as well give up on political debate with the cryptoreligious Left. The best recourse, he tells us, is ridicule. (Hume was right: reason is the slave of the passions.) I agree with Professor Thornton about the futility of […]
Sorry about the scanty output: it’s summer, and I’m on a reduced schedule. I have begun reading The Political Theory of the American Founding, which you may recall from our link to, and subsequent discussion of, Michael Anton’s review. The book directly addresses several questions I have been stewing over for a long time now, […]
With a hat-tip to Bill Vallicella, here’s a survey of the blood-soaked political battlefield from Victor Davis Hanson.
John Batchelor discusses, with former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, the FISA-court application that got the Mueller investigation started. (The redacted application was finally released this weekend in response to persistent FOIA pressure by Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch.) The interview is in two parts, here and here. Mr. McCarthy writes about the release in his […]
From “The Authentic Reactionary“, by NicolÁ¡s GÁ³mez DÁ¡vila (1913”“1994): History is a necessity that freedom produces and chance destroys. This is a beautiful formulation: our freely chosen actions put in train an expanding system of consequences that, being beyond the control of any individual and therefore subject to an irreducibly complex web of contingency, lie […]
Today I was sent an article from the New York Times about Susan Unterberg, a philanthropist who supports female artists. The item was sent to me “as another example of how women are underpaid and not supported”. An excerpt: “They don’t get museum shows as often as men, they don’t command the same prices in […]
An injunction blocking a California law that threatens gun owners with fines or imprisonment if they don’t surrender or otherwise dispose of “high-capacity” magazines (the term refers to anything over ten rounds) has been upheld by, if you can believe it, the Ninth Circuit. David French has the details in a column published yesterday. He […]
Following on our previous post, today we bring you a column by Angelo Codevilla about Monday’s conference in Helsinki. It begins: The high professional quality of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s performance at their Monday press conference in Helsinki contrasts sharply with the obloquy by which the bipartisan U.S. ruling class showcases its willful incompetence. […]
How wearying it is to watch the reaction of the press, and of his political enemies, to President Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin. The hyperbole — “Treason! Pearl Harbor! Kristallnacht!” — would be comical if we weren’t already at about the halfway point on the road to civil war. (This is the same crowd, […]
I’m still too distracted by my houseful of relatives — four generations in all! — to do any writing, or even to pay any serious attention to the wider world, but I feel it necessary to post something — anything! — to push that smirking, malevolent avatar of villainy down the page. But if I […]
Over at Kakistocracy, Porter tosses and gores one Jessica Wood, a Ph.D. student at the university of Guelph, who has written a report that arrives at the following conclusion: “We found people in consensual, non-monogamous relationships experience the same levels of relationship satisfaction, psychological well-being and sexual satisfaction as those in monogamous relationships… This debunks […]
Here’s a good recent item by “Z-Man” on the effects of cultural and sexual rootlessness. Excerpt: Maybe a better way of thinking about the sexual aspect of our cultural crisis is that both men and women are haunted by different specters. For instance, our women are growing increasingly deranged, not because men are wimps, but […]
If things are a bit quiet here over the next few weeks, it’s because we have a full house — our daughter Chloe, her husband Chris, and our little grandson Liam are here from Vienna to stay with us in Wellfleet for a few weeks, and later this week they’ll be joined by our son […]