November 21, 2013 – 7:12 pm
The Democrats today decided to grab a little more power — for now at least — by changing the Senate rules so as to prevent filibustering of executive nominees. This enables them to bypass the Republican minority in order to get some left-wing judges onto the D.C. circuit court. The rule they changed has been […]
November 21, 2013 – 11:02 am
Magnus Carlsen has done it again, defeating Anand in Game 9 to take a near-insuperable 6:3 lead. If he can manage a single draw in the remaining three games, he’s the new champ. You can look at the game (a Nimzo-Indian, with Carlsen playing Black) here.
November 21, 2013 – 12:05 am
Here are a few language-related links I’ve collected over the past few days: — The Webster’s that wasn’t. — Lost in translation. — More of the above. — Some old-school cussin’. — OK, this last one isn’t about language, but here it is anyway: break-dancing Turks. No need to thank me.
November 20, 2013 – 11:32 pm
It seems to me that race is more in the news today than ever — and I’m old enough to remember the 1960s. For something that, according to all goodthinkful people, doesn’t even exist, it sure does get a lot of attention. Or not, depending on the context. For example, the media seem just now […]
November 20, 2013 – 12:10 am
I apologize for the lack of substantial content here these past several weeks. There has been so much to comment on — if nothing else, I’ve been missing out on one of the great Schadenfreudefests of modern political history — yet somehow I’ve found it difficult to lift the pen. Of course this has been […]
November 18, 2013 – 10:30 pm
Interesting item in the New York Post today, especially in light of this item from a few years back. Wonder if we’ll be hearing any more about this.
November 18, 2013 – 10:21 pm
I pass this along without comment: an actual television show, from Japan.
November 17, 2013 – 10:10 pm
In case you haven’t heard, there’s a world chess championship match underway in Chennai, India (that’s ‘Madras’, to those of you of a certain age). The reigning champ, 43-year-old Viswanathan Anand, is attempting to defend his crown against the Norwegian enfant terrible Magnus Carlsen, 22. It isn’t going very well. After four draws, Carlsen, the […]
November 15, 2013 – 9:36 pm
I’m back home in New York, but I’m completely exhausted. These past few weeks have really taken it out of me, and it may be a days or two before I’ll get back to posting here. Thanks again to everyone who has written, posted, and Tweeted their condolences. I really appreciate it.
November 13, 2013 – 11:09 am
My father’s obituary is in today’s New York Times. You can read it here.
November 10, 2013 – 9:43 pm
I’ll be there all week, on business. The days will be long, and there will be scant time for the blog, I’m afraid. I’ll do what I can, but it’s likely that political outrages will go unremarked, scientific breakthroughs will transpire in silence, amusing links will go unposted, and fatuous comments will even go unrebutted. […]
November 10, 2013 – 8:47 pm
My old friend Dave, aware of my gloomy presentiments about our incoming Mayor, sent along an item from Commentary that he thought might cheer me up. The article suggests that things might not go as badly for Gotham as it seems reasonable to expect. After all, argues the author, nobody‘s crazy enough to govern the […]
November 8, 2013 – 3:35 pm
Saved myself a thousand words here:
November 7, 2013 – 11:06 pm
Spare a thought tonight, all of you, in the comfort of your homes, for the poor people of the Philippines who are suffering the horror of Nature’s awful wrath. Many will not see tomorrow.
November 7, 2013 – 10:49 pm
Here’s a 3D-printed 1911. In metal.
November 7, 2013 – 1:19 pm
This is brilliant. Investors take note.
November 7, 2013 – 12:24 am
— Hovercrafts. No eels. — Safety first! — Thomas Sowell on race war in America. — From Isegoria: the original Peabody & Sherman! — Hayek rips Keynes a new one. — Gordon Ramsay explains how to cook a perfect steak. — A mendacious montage. — Jowls a-flappin. — It’s always in the last place you […]
November 5, 2013 – 9:03 pm
Today was Election Day, and at the top of the ballot here in New York City were the candidates for our next mayor. For the fifteen or twenty of us here in Gotham who would prefer a relatively conservative hand upon the helm, there was a fellow by the name of Joe Lhota — while […]
November 4, 2013 – 11:32 pm
I flew home today, and will be glad to put this awful week, and Southern California, behind me. Thanks so very much to all of you who wrote to offer support and sympathy. It was a great comfort to me at a very difficult time. We’ll be getting back to normal here soon. So much […]
November 3, 2013 – 11:49 am
My father, Dr. William Pollack, died at about 8:25 this morning, after having slipped into a coma last night. He was a remarkable man. I will have more to say when the words come.
November 1, 2013 – 4:22 pm
I’m still in California, where my father is slowly sinking, and is now almost completely unresponsive. I have put everything else aside — in particular writing, and work — but will try to get back to both in the next few days, as he lingers on. If nothing else it will be a distraction. Thanks […]
October 26, 2013 – 10:06 pm
Things may be quieter than usual here for the next few days. My elderly father, who has been in declining health for some time, has taken a very serious turn for the worse, and is gravely ill. I am flying to California to join my brother at his bedside.
October 25, 2013 – 6:51 pm
As we all know by now, the good-for-nothing Obamacare website was built, at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of hundreds of millions, on a no-bid contract awarded to a Canadian company called CGI (which stands for Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique). But why CGI? Wouldn’t it have made patriotic sense, at the very least, to […]
October 25, 2013 – 2:25 pm
As noted in these pages seven years ago, I’m a “fall guy“. It’s always been my favorite season. Here are some lovely photos of autumn in America. (I mean that literally, not figuratively, of course.)
October 24, 2013 – 11:10 pm
In the Antarctic. The most in thirty years.
October 24, 2013 – 3:16 pm
In case you missed it: here’s a lesson in political philosophy from one Russell Brand, who is apparently a British entertainer of some sort. His plan appears to be: Phase 1: Revolution! Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Justice! Should work. He’s obviously given it a lot of thought.
October 24, 2013 – 2:18 pm
In this article from Science Daily, we learn that eucalyptus trees are pumping gold out of the ground.
October 23, 2013 – 9:58 pm
Here’s a a 3D zoomable panorama of the Sistine Chapel.
October 23, 2013 – 5:05 pm
The indefatigable JK sends along this item, with the comment “Good thing they raised the debt ceiling in time.” This is OUR MONEY, people.
October 23, 2013 – 10:43 am
It is generally the case that bien-pensant women (and not just the women!) in advanced Western societies are eager to crush all vestiges of “gender” differences. They imagine a world in which half of all soldiers, network admins, metallurgists, auto mechanics, and oil-rig workers are female, and half of all librarians, nurses, pre-school teachers, cosmetologists, […]
October 22, 2013 – 9:39 pm
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a brief post about an idea, discussed by blogger and IT consultant Bruce Webster, that he calls the “Thermocline of Truth”. Mr. Webster describes it: In many large or even medium-sized IT projects, there exists a thermocline of truth, a line drawn across the organizational chart that represents […]
October 22, 2013 – 1:54 pm
For you bitter clingers, here’s a WWII-era training film: combat firing with the 1911 .45 ACP. One thing modern shooters will notice (and did, if you read the comments at the linked clip): the lack of emphasis on trigger and muzzle safety, which nowadays is the first thing you learn in any training course.
October 21, 2013 – 10:25 pm
Another item from the frontiers of science: the Law of Mammalian Urination.
October 21, 2013 – 10:00 pm
With a hat tip to our man Mangan, here’s some good news: coffee helps prevent liver disease. The more you drink, the more it helps.
October 19, 2013 – 8:42 pm
It’s Oysterfest weekend in Wellfleet once again, and your humble correspondent has reclaimed his crown at the annual Spelling Bee. I realize that by now most of you have likely already heard — I’m sure it’s all over the national media — but I thought the rest of you would like to know.
October 19, 2013 – 8:23 pm
It’s the flesh-eating beetle, genus Dermestes. See these hungry little guys in action, here.
October 19, 2013 – 11:41 am
OK, everybody, I think we all need a little cooling-off period. Time to set aside our partisan differences and watch a bear play tetherball.
October 18, 2013 – 12:09 pm
OK, the battle’s over, if not the war, and as we carry the dead from the blood-soaked field, Obamacare is still the “law of the land”. (“Flaw of the land”, according to some, but never mind.) So: how’s it going? Megan McArdle’s been wondering. If you are too, here’s a nifty website to help you […]
October 17, 2013 – 10:07 pm
I’ve been preoccupied, so just a pair of related links for tonight. The topic is ‘biobots’ — i.e., remote-controlled cockroaches — and new ways to use them.
October 15, 2013 – 10:23 pm
I have a question for all of you who say insist that the Democrats have played no causal role in this government shutdown and impending default (there’s no reason why the US must cease paying its debt service if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, by the way). (Just to be clear: although I agree with […]
October 15, 2013 – 8:15 pm
From an item at SFGate: People whose 2014 income will be a little too high to get subsidized health insurance from Covered California next year should start thinking now about ways to lower it to increase their odds of getting the valuable tax subsidy. Slip-slidin’ away…
October 14, 2013 – 10:55 pm
— Steve Sailer comments on the tendency of women who are interested in science to go into the “life sciences” (medicine, biology) rather than fields like physics and chemistry. — Mark Steyn on King John and Barack Obama. — A “must-know” endgame from Susan Polgar. — Iron Man. — Walter Williams on guns, and the […]
October 13, 2013 – 1:30 pm
Forward-looking, tech-savvy investors knew a while back that 3-D printing was going to be a Big Deal. (Those farsighted speculators have already made handsome returns with companies like 3-D Systems and Stratasys.) The technology is still in its infancy, though — about where personal computing was in 1980 or so — and its truly transformative […]
October 11, 2013 – 11:41 pm
With a hat tip to our friend Mangan: sitting will kill you.
October 11, 2013 – 7:00 pm
Here’s the academic Left descending ever deeper into self-parody. Racism collides with sexism in a self-pitying pissing-contest of the microscopically oppressed. One would have to have a heart of stone to read this without laughing.
October 10, 2013 – 9:55 pm
On the dance floor itself, a great seething mass of people move like maggots in a tin. — Theodore Dalrymple, visiting a club. From Life at the Bottom, Kindle location 1408.
October 8, 2013 – 6:07 pm
I don’t know what’s worse here: the brownshirt tactics of NPS rangers assigned to strong-arm old folks so as to make House Republicans look mean, or the awful fact that someone educated in America could accuse a person of “recreating”. God help us.
October 8, 2013 – 3:54 pm
Over at The New Republic, in an article called Quit Blaming Gerrymandering for the Shutdown, Nate Cohn addresses some fashionable ideas about the effects of Congressional districting.
October 8, 2013 – 3:29 pm
In a new worldwide evaluation of various cognitive skills, Americans have made a poor showing. Americans performed below the international average on math, reading and problem-solving on the exam, known as the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. U.S. math skills lagged far behind top performers, including Japan and Finland. The Organisation for […]