I’m not happy about this. Not at all.
Following on those recently linked posts by Victor Davis Hanson and Heather Mac Donald, which limned in dispiriting detail the total collapse of the rule of law as applied to illegal immigrants and the crimes, petty and otherwise, that they commit (see, for example, the corrosive vandalism and petty theft described by Mr. Hanson), we […]
Victor Davis Hanson is one of our pre-eminent gloominaries. This isn’t surprising, given that he is a scholar of history, and that his family has been farming California’s Central valley for generations. Both of these things give him an objective baseline against which to measure our civilization’s, and in particular California’s, accelerating decline and decay. […]
The latest edition of Hillsdale College’s newsletter Imprimis features a strong essay by Heather Mac Donald on the nation’s descent into lawlessness with regard to immigration policy. A great deal of the blame belongs to the Obama administration — which has all but completely abandoned deportation as a response to illegal entry, even by repeat […]
When I was young, I used to read a lot of science fiction. I remember the Hugo Awards being the Oscars of the genre, and it generally seemed to me that they were given to deserving recipients — Dune, the Foundation series, Stranger in a Strange Land, Ringworld, Rendezvous With Rama, Stand on Zanzibar, Neuromancer, […]
Singapore’s long-time leader Lee Kuan Yew died a couple of weeks ago. His death brought a surprising outpouring of praise from all quarters: even Barack Obama praised the man, and John Kerry, in a characteristically infelicitous phrase, said Mr. Lee ‘exuded wisdom’. You should find this acclamation puzzling, because Mr. Lee was the polar opposite […]
One of the more spirited characters in our politically-oriented online media is the blogger who goes by the name ‘Ace of Spades’. Here’s a fine rant by Ace on this shameful Indiana business. (Warning: intemperate language.)
Here’s a significant item: a new study from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology has found that that anthropogenic aerosols have been causing much less cooling than prior models had assumed. This means that these aerosols are doing less to offset putative warming caused by carbon dioxide, which means in turn that temperature sensitivity to […]
This ruction about Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act is deplorable for many reasons — not least of which is the fact that Indiana’s law is nothing unusual, and resembles very closely similar laws in other states (including, for example, Connecticut, whose governor has ostentatiously called for a state-spending boycott of Indiana, and Illinois, where young […]
I’m much improved this week. I’m still full of powerful narcotics, but I’m getting around a lot better, and my “little grey cells” are starting to come back to life. It’s hard to know where to pick up the thread of current and recent events; an awful lot has been going on. There’s the Iran […]
March 25, 2015 – 12:09 pm
Sorry to have been down so long… this post-operative experience is everything they warned me it would be, and then some. The deep pain, and the meds one has to take to manage it, are so disorienting and exhausting that any sort of serious thinking, reading, or writing are just impossible. (Even typing is affected […]
March 21, 2015 – 10:38 am
We hear this expression all the time lately. As a lover of language, I’ve done a little research, and it turns out that in archaic usage it could refer to actual injuries, too, and not just to somebody, somewhere, having said something uncomplimentary. Good to know! I’m home again, but too exhausted and doped up […]
Knee replaced without incident. In hospital till later this week. Thanks again all. – MP
Thanks all for the well-wishes in comments and emails, folks. I’ll leave you all on this cheery note.
March 15, 2015 – 12:39 am
Back in January of 1996, I had a little mishap down at the kwoon. We had a cocky student who needed taking down a peg, and in the course of doing so I smote him with a jumping double kick — showboating on my part, really, because such things are hardly necessary for effective Hung […]
March 13, 2015 – 11:02 pm
Jonah Goldberg wrote an amusing item today about the Hillary Clinton email flap. I’ve had too much on my mind this week to write anything substantial, so for tonight I’ll just pass along an excerpt of Mr. Goldberg’s commentary: As Bill Clinton said when the harem girls on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane finally announced they were […]
March 12, 2015 – 10:53 pm
Here’s an interesting item from across the pond: We were wrong to try to ban racism out of existence, says former equality chief The modern order (there’s an oxymoron for you!) is all about careless destruction.
Republicans in the Senate have sent a letter to Iran’s leadership informing them of the Constitutional limitations of any deal the President may make without the approval of Congress. This is in response to Mr. Obama’s apparent intention to make such a deal as an ‘executive agreement’ that he can conclude without seeking Congress’s consent. […]
Rumors are going round that Ayatollah Khamenei’s cancer has now killed him. That would certainly complicate any pending deals, unless there’s a successor and an agreement that have just been waiting in the wings. Hard to see how things could coalesce that fast, or that reliably, though.
Overheard in a checkout line yesterday: Shopper #1: “Tomorrow night’s Daylight Savings Time.” Shopper #2: “Yeah. ‘Spring Ahead’, right? So we lose an hour of sleep.” Shopper #1: “Yeah… but maybe the extra hour of sunlight will help melt all this snow!”
People talk about the “second childhood” of old age. What relates the second childhood to the first is high “time preference”: that it cares more about the present than the future. The edges of our lives are unlike the middle. The child is unaware of its future; the old man has none.
Well, it seems as if this story about Hillary Clinton’s emails has caused quite a commotion. (As it should.) From Jim Geraghty’s morning newsletter (my emphasis): The primary feature of Hillary’s “home-brewed’ system was that it could destroy e-mails completely and permanently — no backups or third-party records that you get with Yahoo or Gmail. […]
Heard on the radio today: “There are three coequal branches of government in the United States: the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and Anthony Kennedy.”
Benjamin Netanyahu just gave a magnificent, and in my opinion historic, address to Congress on the dangers of the pending deal with Iran. He was interrupted 43 times by thunderous applause. The shade of Winston Churchill, who was the only other foreign leader to have addressed Congress three times, hovered approvingly over the proceedings. Mr. […]
I won’t comment on Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress tomorrow, other than to note that President Obama has nothing on his public schedule at 11 a.m., and that the boycott of the address by the Congressional Black Caucus and other Democrats is not something they ought to be particularly proud of. (My own representative, Yvette […]
February 27, 2015 – 2:45 pm
It’s getting hard to keep up with the engulfment of every aspect of our lives by the government, and of every aspect of government by the Executive branch. Most worrisome of all is the extent to which regulatory control of the nation’s affairs, and the disbursement of the nation’s wealth, have fallen under the supremacy […]
February 27, 2015 – 11:25 am
An interesting item over the transom this morning from our reader and commenter The Big Henry: Data Mining Indian Recipes Reveals New Food Pairing Phenomenon I’d never even heard of this ‘food pairing’ business. It uses chemical analysis to determine which foods have shared ‘flavor components’, and should go well together.
February 26, 2015 – 4:08 pm
A little while ago we remarked on the government’s disingenuous account of the ‘root causes’ of ‘violent extremism’. Both President Obama and the State Department’s spokespigeon Marie Harf have painstakingly refused to identify Islamic jihad as Islamic jihad, and have tried to persuade us instead that the real problem is a lack of business opportunities. […]
February 26, 2015 – 12:01 am
…is ‘TATO’. It stands for ‘TATO And TATO Only’. (hat-tip: D.R.H.)
February 24, 2015 – 11:33 pm
A few weeks back I noted that global warmism was, in many cases, a secular repurposing of the religious impulse, and that its narrative is a near-perfect parallel of the Christian Fall-and-Redemption mythos: In the beginning, there was only God. From God arose Man. Before his Fall, Man lived simply, and in perfect harmony with […]
February 23, 2015 – 10:07 pm
Those of us of a “certain age” will note with sorrow the loss of Sam Houston Andrew III, the guitarist and co-founder of the psychedelic-era band Big Brother and the Holding Company. He died last week at 73, of complications following a heart attack.
February 22, 2015 – 1:50 pm
It’s nice to see Rudy Giuliani standing firm on his remarks about Barack Obama. Mr. Giuliani has obviously reached the point where he is answerable to nobody: he is independently wealthy, and has no voters to appease. The Cathedral’s levers therefore having (for now at least) no point of purchase on him, he is free […]
February 21, 2015 – 6:44 pm
I was out doing errands just now, and stopped in at the local Asian fruit-and-vegetable shop. I had grabbed several things that were three for a dollar, five for a dollar, etc., and the young woman behind the counter quickly summed up the total in her head. I complimented her on her calculating skill. She […]
February 21, 2015 – 2:23 pm
Our reader and commenter Whitewall has brought to our attention an excellent article, by the blogger and columnist Daniel Greenfield, on the modern West’s dreamy image of Islam. The gist is this: Islam never became enlightened. It never stopped being ”˜medieval’. Whatever enlightenment it received was imposed on it by European colonialism. It’s a second-hand […]
February 21, 2015 – 1:02 am
From the indefatigable JK: video of a U.S. air-to-ground attack. Here. – Erratum: I had originally referred this as a “drone team”. Thanks to commenter El Gringo for the correction.
February 20, 2015 – 12:11 am
I understand President Obama said some things today about ‘extremism’. I haven’t read what he said, so I won’t comment for now. I’m sure I’m going to love it. I did, however, get not one, but two nice little notes from Mr. Obama’s ministry of propaganda today, telling me that it was time to “beat […]
February 17, 2015 – 4:35 pm
My God, we are ruled by children. If this weren’t bad enough (and it is), we have now put forward a feather-headed teenage girl by the name of Marie Harf as the public face of America’s foreign policy. Yesterday, as noted at Twitchy.com, she explained to Chris Matthews that the real answer to defeating ISIS […]
February 16, 2015 – 11:33 pm
On February 26th, a five-member panel of FCC commissioners will vote on adopting a plan to apply government regulation to various aspects of the operation of the Internet. This will undoubtedly have far-reaching effects — and given the scale of the Federal government, of the Internet, and of the conflicting interests that will be affected, […]
February 15, 2015 – 11:37 pm
Every January or February (depending on when I remember to do it) I present a sampling of the search keyphrases that brought visitors to this site during the previous year. Here’s the 2014 selection. This year’s winner was the mysterious phrase “lwica lwica”, which occurred 318 times. You may also notice some perennial favorites. compelling […]
February 14, 2015 – 9:56 pm
On an end-table next to where I do most of my reading there is a lamp with a ‘three-way’ bulb. Last night one of its filaments burned out, and I found that I had no more of these bulbs in the house. I’ll go looking for another tomorrow. I know that these ‘three-way’ bulbs were […]
February 13, 2015 – 5:23 pm
“When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.” – Lord Kelvin “Yes, and when you can express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.” – Jacob Viner
February 11, 2015 – 1:24 pm
In a recent nerf-ball interview with Vox, President Obama gloated at the disintegration of the American nation into a dissociated congeries of human particles. In his remarks, Mr. Obama said the following thing: …I’m pretty optimistic, and the reason is because this country just becomes more and more of a hodgepodge of folks… So people […]
February 10, 2015 – 5:18 pm
Well, whaddya know: after decades of scaremongering about dietary cholesterol, it looks like the U.S. government is about to tell us we don’t need to worry about it after all. This from the Washington Post: The nation’s top nutrition advisory panel has decided to drop its caution about eating cholesterol-laden food, a move that could […]
February 9, 2015 – 8:17 pm
Yet another round of painful periodontal surgery today. I’m too out-of-it to write much, or well. Some links, then: ‣ I’m going to have to get myself some of this, I think. ‣ 42 hours of Buckminster Fuller lectures. ‣ The St. Augustine Monster. ‣ Medieval Metallica. ‣ Charles Cooke […]
February 8, 2015 – 12:03 am
Well, we’re back from our little trip to Banderas Bay. It’s bracing to be back home again in the frigid North. Balmy breezes in February are nice enough in small doses, I suppose, but frankly the whole tropical-paradise thing has a limited and transitory appeal to Ice People like me. If history hasn’t already made […]
January 30, 2015 – 10:39 am
Leaving the country for a week. Probably no posts till we get back.
January 29, 2015 – 12:03 am
Well, here’s a heartwarming item. I may be wrong, but I am increasingly confident that Hillary Clinton will never be the President of these United States. She’s too old, too obviously incompetent, too ruthless, too unprincipled, too insincere, and she has too much baggage. Some combination of these things will bring her down, once the […]
January 28, 2015 – 8:40 pm
President Obama has proposed that we make community college ‘free’. Leaving aside the obvious, inviolable, but apparently unmentionable truth that no public service is ‘free’ (and passing up as well the opportunity to razz the President for his cockamamie scheme, since ridiculed out of existence, to start taxing college-saving plans to help foot the bill), […]
January 27, 2015 – 1:36 pm
In a post written earlier this month, after a conversation about global warming with an intelligent and well-educated friend, I remarked on the similarity between secular environmentalism and religion: I was struck once again by the clarity with which global-warmism reveals itself as a secular repurposing of the religious impulse — a deep and universal […]