Just ran across some fantastic light-table photos of the jellyfish known as the Portuguese man-of-war. Have a look here.
April 18, 2013 – 12:00 pm
Yesterday I wrote that gun-control advocates had lost in a “clean sweep” of Senate votes. That’s not quite true. One of the defeated proposals was a requirement that all states reciprocally honor concealed-carry permits. In a rare moment of agreement with Chuck Schumer, I think it’s good that this idea was voted down. It’s anti-federalist, […]
Well! I’ve been traveling all day, but having arrived in the outer Cape I see we extremists (being one of which, I have it on excellent authority, is under the circumstances no vice) made a clean sweep today in Washington. Most gratifying to win a battle every now and again. On to immigration “reform”!
Today we have an excellent piece by Charles C.W. Cooke on the abrogation, by gun-control partisans, of rational deliberation in favor of shameless appeals to emotion. (Mind you, the abrogation itself is very much the product of rational calculation; the politicians and pundits doing this are clearly aware that such vile mawkishness can be a […]
With bills addressing both issues making their way through Congress, here are two fine articles by Thomas Sowell: one on gun control, and the other on “immigration reform”. I wish Sowell weren’t quite so old; such clear thinkers are as valuable as they are rare.
Public opinion moves fast these days; stick your head out the Overton Window for a glimpse ahead, and you’re liable to get whacked in the back of the skull. A position that was publicly held by the President less than a year ago — a neutral position at that, namely mixed feelings about gay marriage […]
Nothing for tonight. I had a couple of things I wanted to post, but in the wake of the news from Boston neither politics nor blithe general-interest material seems appropriate. I was working today, and watching Twitter out of the corner of my eye; one got the sense that a great many people were just […]
Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Meanwhile, in other news…
April 13, 2013 – 12:16 pm
Happy birthdays 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 Keel, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Ken Nordine, Don Adams, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Seamus Heaney, Paul Sorvino, Jack Casady, Tony Dow, Lowell George, Al Green, Ron Perlman, Christopher Hitchens, […]
April 13, 2013 – 11:22 am
Here’s more on the Gosnell case, if you can bear it, from Conor Friedersdorf. Here too is Andrew McCarthy on the too-familiar process by which dehumanization precedes atrocity. And here’s Roger Simon on the mainstream media’s discomfort with this story. Here’s a photo of the media area at the Philadelphia courthouse where the trial, of […]
I’m very sad to report the death of comedic genius Jonathan Winters, quite possibly the funniest man who ever lived. Here he was in 1964, with a stick.
Read John McCreary’s latest assessment of the North Korean adventure, here.
Investor’s Business Daily’s editorial board comments here on the mainstream media’s non-coverage of the trial of the monstrous Kermit Gosnell, who ran an “abortion” abattoir in Philadelphia in which living infants were routinely and gruesomely murdered. A search just now on the New York Times website turned up exactly one article, from page 17 of […]
Having just got back from our trip, I’m still getting caught up on work, current events, email, and so on. It does seem that rather a lot has happened here in the States and around the world while we were gone, none of it particularly encouraging. Meanwhile, here are three pictures from China (click on […]
We’ve made it home to New York, and are recovering. Things will get back to normal here again soon.
Having found a little free time and a stable Internet connection, I thought I’d give a little update: I’m sitting on the rooftop of an inn at the foot of the famous Moon Hill, a limestone arch just a few kilometers from the town of Yangshuo, in Guangxi province, China. Here’s the view from our […]
Phil Ramone, arguably the greatest record producer of all time, died on Saturday. He was a towering presence in the recording industry, and his death is an enormous loss to us all. His work, and his influence, touched every aspect of recording. (He’s even the man responsible for putting that long-familiar pair of Shure SM-57s […]
March 29, 2013 – 11:11 pm
Lawrence Auster has died. There are things I would like to say about him, his influence on my own thinking, and the grace with which he faced his final ordeal, but I must say them later. He was a brilliant and difficult man. For now, go and read Laura Wood’s entry at VFR. See also […]
March 27, 2013 – 11:46 am
Things will be quiet around here for the next two weeks or so: the lovely Nina and I are off to fabled Cathay, where our brilliant and beautiful daughter is teaching science at an international high school in Guangzhou. We’ll all be spending a few days in scenic Yangshuo, and the memsahib and I will […]
March 27, 2013 – 11:01 am
There’s grist for every ideological mill in this item, which came over the transom from a reader this morning. It lists the admissions this year, by race, to New York’s premier public high school, Stuyvesant. Admission to Stuy is a pure meritocracy; do well enough on the entrance exam, and you’re in. Here are the […]
March 26, 2013 – 11:14 pm
Today was gay-marriage day at the Supreme Court. Read the transcript here. Key points, I think, were two lines of questioning directed from the bench to Ted Olson, one from Antonin Scalia (“You ”” you’ve led me right into a question I was going to ask…”), and one from Sonia Sotomayor (“Mr. Olson, the bottom […]
One of the intrinsic disadvantages conservatives have in the P.R. war with the Left is that we weren’t brought up to think that victimhood is an appropriate foundation for a well-built life. For traditional, conservative sorts, weaned on solid Christian pessimism, it is simply the plain truth that life will always dish out insults and […]
Charles Cooke, who is a very sensible fellow for one so young, comments at length on Albany’s stupid, histrionic, opportunistic, and authoritarian reaction to Newtown.
March 23, 2013 – 11:05 pm
Here’s Alfred Jay Nock, writing in 1936 about a little-sought-after but highly rewarding career path: prophet to the Remnant.
This one’s been making the rounds: the fish with “human teeth”.
March 23, 2013 – 12:03 pm
The perfect should never be the enemy of the good, but we should always let the good be the enemy of the merely convenient.
March 21, 2013 – 11:05 pm
This caught my eye: US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email Non-electronic communication will soon be a thing of the past. It’s interesting that the simplest of technologies — a packet of paper, a drop of wax — made possible, for thousands of years, something that for most people will soon […]
When you abandon reason and due process, and act only upon hysteria, emotion and sensationalism, this is what you get. That such people are in charge of our public affairs — and have the power to revise and abridge our cherished liberties at their whim — is horrifying.
Here is a sensible piece by George Will on why the Court should strike down the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’. In brief: the definition and regulation of marriage is not among the Federal government’s enumerated and carefully limited powers. Students of history will recall that this actually used to mean something.
March 20, 2013 – 10:20 pm
I’m working late again tonight, so all I have, I’m afraid, is this brief item from NRO, in which we learn that a Connecticut principal has canceled his school’s annual celebration of its honors students, in order not to bruise the emotions of those less successful. Yes, readers, America is well on the way to […]
Today’s good news: it looks like Dianne Feinstein’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” is dying on the vine.
March 18, 2013 – 11:32 pm
I was wondering when this was going to happen. One Twitterer remarked: If Silicon Valley is a meritocracy (or aspires to be) why not let everyone see company hiring stats for women and people of color. Here’s a guess: It’s because Silicon Valley (which is really just a proxy for companies that make their money […]
March 17, 2013 – 11:31 pm
Here is a very beautiful performance of Lachrimae Pavane, written by the English Renaissance composer and lutenist John Dowland. The player is the Swedish guitarist Per-Olov Kindgren. It’s hard to describe the emotional effect of Dowland’s music; it’s terribly sad, but just to call it “melancholy” is too one-sided. There is also something deeply comforting […]
On the elevation of the new Pope, we’ve seen a lot of sulking about the Catholic Church’s inexplicable reluctance to get itself properly aligned with the Left’s social-issues agenda. It is, as Dennis Mangan points out here, perfectly understandable for socially ‘progressive’ sorts to consider the Church a political opponent, and to seek to reduce […]
As usually happens, the middle of this week has meant long hours at work. So for the moment, just a few links: — A fine rant, from across the pond, on the new subjectivity of justice, and the culture of victimhood. — A necessary government expenditure that appears, so far, to have survived the sequester. […]
March 12, 2013 – 11:05 pm
I don’t drink Coke, but I certainly had a smile when I read that Michael Bloomberg’s infantilizing sugary-drink ban had been smacked down by the Supreme Court of the State of New York. (Smacked down by the very researchers he quoted in support of it, too, but that’s another story.) From the Times: In an […]
March 11, 2013 – 11:18 pm
Well, that’s a big job, but it can be done! You just have to work hard, and keep the goal in view. As with all big jobs, the trick is to break it down into smaller parts. Here’s Victor Davis Hanson on how to take care of the economy. (Hat tip: Bill Keezer.) Forgive me, […]
March 11, 2013 – 12:27 pm
Here’s an outstandingly clear and well-informed article addressing the commonest of the Left’s positions on gun-control. It’s long, but well worth your time.
From Democracy In America, here’s Alexis de Tocqueville on the complexity of American law: The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they can be read by every one; nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents. The indispensable want of legal assistance which […]
After a round of too-long-put-off periodontal surgery today at the hands of the gifted healer Louis Franzetti, I am in a deep post-operative torpor. Back soon.
All right, I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, sure, all this ‘civilization’ stuff you’re always on about is probably kind of important, I guess… …but what about knotted vortices?” Right you are. And here you go.
Finally. From ‘The Diplomad’, a brief and accurate summary. Excerpt: In short, his was a bravura performance which has left Venezuela awash in debt, crime, and poverty–the signature achievement of leftism everywhere in the world. Thanks to Bill Keezer for the link. And here’s another.
With a hat tip to Bill Vallicella, we urge you to read an excellent article at The Jurist, by criminologist Don Kates, on the lack of empirical evidence for the Left’s position on gun bans. The article includes links to public recantations by many former gun-ban advocates, including a 1995 paper by noted criminologist Marvin […]
Here’s yet another interesting item from Edge.org, this time an interview with a young psychologist named Adam Alter, whom I hadn’t heard of before now. The article’s accompanying biographical note says this about him: ADAM ALTER is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Stern School of Business, NYU. He is the author of Drunk Tank […]
I guess we’re all feeling pretty low, now that the Sequester has gone into effect. I haven’t been paying much attention to the news since Friday (been busy arranging the canned goods down in the shelter), but if the predictions I’d been hearing have turned out to be correct, the entire nation is now unemployed, […]
Yes readers, it’s gotten this bad.
Back in January the New York State legislature rammed through a major gun-control bill, in the middle of the night, as a hysterical reaction to the Newtown shootings. The legislators were given just a few minutes to read the bill before a vote was called, in violation of a law that imposes a three-day review […]
February 28, 2013 – 9:05 pm
I’m working late tonight, so here’s a strange item for you to mull over: the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Read about it on Wikipedia, here, or for a more detailed account, have a look here. Strangest of all: the missing tongue.
February 28, 2013 – 1:54 pm
Here’s Maxine Waters, who is a walking one-woman argument for limiting the power of the Federal government, “explaining” sequestration. Apparently, more jobs will be lost — 170 million — than currently exist. As Charles Cooke said on Twitter just now, “I wouldn’t trust this woman to explain how a fork works.”