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.”
February 27, 2013 – 11:58 pm
From Norway: an uncommonly open-minded video about race. Here.
February 26, 2013 – 11:19 pm
… goes wabbling back to the Fire.
February 26, 2013 – 11:13 pm
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a festschrift on Federal spending, from the Heritage Foundation. Browse. And just for some perspective about the calamitous effects of the impending “sequestration” — upon which event, we are told, the sun will be folded up, the heavens flayed, the pregnant she-camels neglected, and Hell set […]
February 23, 2013 – 10:37 pm
I’ve written and deleted three posts already today, and am just going to lay off for a day or two. I’m cranky and fed up, and have a toothache besides, and nothing interesting, good or useful will come of writing under such circumstances. Back in a bit.
February 22, 2013 – 11:40 pm
Writing at NRO, Jonah Goldberg comments on the sky-is-falling hysteria surrounding the impending “sequester” — which, were you just to listen to the news or to White House Press releases, you’d never imagine would still leave the federal government spending more money than last year. Mr. Goldberg observes: Obama wants more tax hikes and thinks […]
February 22, 2013 – 2:36 pm
The world’s tuna fishery is collapsing, with prime specimens selling for seven-digit prices. Yet tuna is everywhere, from supermarket shelves to delis to sushi bars, and the retail cost remains low. How is this possible? According to this item, a majority of the “tuna” being sold in the U.S. isn’t tuna at all. A lot […]
February 21, 2013 – 11:47 pm
Mencius Moldbug comments on the approaching death of Lawrence Auster, here. Auster himself is puzzled, and I think his puzzlement illustrates rather well exactly the points Moldbug makes about him: Auster’s specialty is order and clarity, while Moldbug’s piece, as always, is long, discursive, and sesquipedalian. But I thought it was quite a nice tribute, […]
February 21, 2013 – 3:29 pm
Over at Mangan’s, our friend Dennis links to a post by Bruce Charlton about the cratering birthrates of the developed, Westernized world. That there is something maladaptive about secular modernity has been apparent for some time, and I’ve written about this myself; most of the discussion to date, however, has focused on social and cultural […]
February 20, 2013 – 9:35 pm
I’m just whipped tonight, having got home from work at 5 a.m. this morning, and having to get right back up for another long day. A miscellany for tonight, then: — Some Forteana, here and here. — The world’s Tweets, in real time. — From Russia, with love (you might have missed this one). — […]
February 19, 2013 – 1:44 pm
With a hat tip to reader Bill Keezer, here’s a blunt, crepuscular rant from noted gloominary Victor Davis Hanson.
February 19, 2013 – 12:02 pm
A young researcher in China has begun a project to find the genetic basis for the heritable components of human intelligence. We shouldn’t be surprised to see that this is happening in China, and not in the West, where most of the academics I know are of the opinion that there’s no such thing as […]
February 19, 2013 – 1:01 am
Milton Freidman responds to President Obama’s call for a hike in the minimum wage. Here, from beyond the grave.
February 18, 2013 – 9:24 pm
Kevin Kim, whose academic specialty is the study of the world’s religions, has written a stupendous essay on the possibly-divine nature of Peter Sellers’s character Chance, from the movie Being There. Get thee hence and read it, here.
February 18, 2013 – 3:08 pm
Reader JK sends along a provocative item from ABC News. The gist: the soldiers who were shot at Fort Hood by the jihadist infiltrator Nidal Hasan have been denied various benefits, including the Purple Heart, because the Defense Department refuses to define the shooting as an attack by an enemy combatant — preferring instead to […]
February 17, 2013 – 10:46 pm
I do love Wikipedia. Here’s a page listing those parts of our bodies that are named after people.
February 17, 2013 – 1:16 am
A vexing feature of modern physicalistic non-theism is that, followed to its logical conclusion, it leads to moral nihilism. (I realize that theistic attempts to put morality on an objective basis also face serious challenges, but that’s not the point tonight.) Moral nihilism being, to most folks, bad, there’s been a rash lately of books […]
February 15, 2013 – 12:13 am
As often happens to me at this point in the week, I’m up late again, working. I’ve been thinking about all sorts of postworthy topics in the past few days, but I just can’t find the time right now to write about them, so they’ll have to wait. So for tonight, all I have to […]
February 13, 2013 – 3:40 pm
Sad news from Lawrence Auster today: the pancreatic cancer he’s been fighting so stoically has now metastasized to his brain. It’s hard to imagine that he has much time left. It’s also hard to imagine VFR silenced.
February 12, 2013 – 11:58 pm
I haven’t got a whole lot to say about the speech. What did anyone expect? There isn’t a problem anywhere on Earth that isn’t best solved by some new Federal program, “partnership”, or “investment”. And all without adding a “single dime” to the deficit. There was the call for higher Federal minimum wage, the argument […]
February 12, 2013 – 4:09 pm
My God, this is unbelievable. The IOC has decided that wrestling will no longer be part of the Olympics as of 2020. Wrestling. What next, running? Well, at least we still have synchronized swimming, ping pong, kayaking and badminton, for you traditionalists.
February 12, 2013 – 1:27 pm
Slideshows (scroll down) here and here, respectively.
February 12, 2013 – 12:01 am
The End of Days, 263 ways, ancient and modern. Here.
February 11, 2013 – 11:28 pm
So, it seems that North Korea has detonated another atomic weapon. I wonder if there will be any room for this in tomorrow’s SOTU, in between calling for new “investments” and introducing all the Lenny Shotniks I’ve heard will be attending.
February 11, 2013 – 2:39 pm
If you live in Santo AntÁ´nio da Platina, Brazil, you might want to buy an umbrella. Or, better yet, a new home, somewhere else.
February 10, 2013 – 11:11 pm
Here’s Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick’s pre-storm presser from Thursday night. Pure gold.
February 10, 2013 – 9:59 pm
Readers, as bad as things may be getting over here — and anyone with any sense can see they’re going to get a hell of a lot worse before they get better — at least we don’t have to endure some of the unspeakable horrors that afflict other, less fortunate nations. So be of stout […]
February 10, 2013 – 9:34 pm
Attentive readers may recall that a few years ago we U.S. taxpayers lent $465 million to Tesla, a maker of electric cars. More recently we restructured the loan so that Tesla wouldn’t run out of money. (It is now, after all, a matter of vital national interest that Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial speculations actually pay off.) […]
February 9, 2013 – 11:55 pm
I’ve mentioned the incomparable Deepak Chopra in these pages a time or two in the past. The man is of course the world’s greatest living mountebank, and has made a fabulous living hawking 24-carat flapdoodle to swooning suckers. You have to admire talent like that. As it turns out, somebody admires it enough to have […]
February 9, 2013 – 10:46 pm
In case you haven’t heard, the chattering classes are all atwitter about a talk given at the recent National Prayer Breakfast by one Ben Carson, chief of pediatric neurosurgery at John Hopkins. At the podium, standing just a few feet away from President Obama, Dr. Carson spoke about several matters of national policy — in […]
February 9, 2013 – 1:19 am
That’s right, flying squid. And as fast as Usain Bolt, if flying isn’t enough. Here. (“Fast ‘n’ bulbous”, as I think a wise man once said.)
February 8, 2013 – 10:35 pm
Here’s an clever idea: crowdsourcing of malaria diagnosis, using a simple video game. Have a look.
February 8, 2013 – 10:15 pm
If you’ve been following the national “conversation” about immigration and race relations (at least as publicly reported), it may come as a surprise to you to learn that one can speak about these things in a heterodox way on any grounds but “hate”. To express such dissenting opinions, however rational their basis, and however common […]
February 8, 2013 – 1:24 am
Here. Courtesy of Devin Townsend.
February 7, 2013 – 12:46 am
I’m swamped with work this week, so no time for writing. But as always, I’d hate for you to go away empty-handed — so here’s a fantastic dance scene by the one and only Eleanor Powell, accompanied by a young Buddy Rich.
February 5, 2013 – 10:51 pm
If you’re like me, you’ve been wondering whether there are any critters out there that can locate food by way of odor gradients. Well, meet the Eastern mole: the mammal that smells in stereo.
February 5, 2013 – 12:44 pm
This just in: the largest known prime number is now 257,885,161 – 1. More here.
February 4, 2013 – 8:59 pm
I almost never write about gustatory matters here, but I’ll make an exception to rave about a particularly outstanding offering from one of America’s most creative microbreweries, Dogfish Head. Dogfish Head specializes in unusual and high-strength ales. Their best-known products are their highly hopped IPAs (the 90-Minute Imperial IPA, weighing in at 9% alcohol by […]