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 […]
February 4, 2013 – 5:20 pm
February is probably the quietest and loneliest month on the Outer Cape, but in many ways the deep winter is most beautiful time of year out here, I think. Here’s the high bluff at the end of Longnook Road, Truro, late yesterday afternoon.
February 4, 2013 – 12:13 am
Here’s the late Chris Kyle being interviewed by one Belinda Luscombe, an editor at Time. The gulf between them is obvious. It seems to me that to her he is almost incomprehensible, as if he belonged to some alien species. (Which probably isn’t very far from the truth: I expect that Mr. Kyle had very […]
February 3, 2013 – 6:01 pm
“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” – Leonardo do Vinci
February 3, 2013 – 12:31 am
We’ve just heard that the renowned Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the most effective sniper in American military history, has been murdered in Texas. Details are scant. Our deepest condolences to his young family.
February 3, 2013 – 12:28 am
We were down for a while tonight: our hosting service, Bluehost.com, had its first extended outage in the seven years I’ve been with them. (I enthusiastically recommend them, nevertheless, to any of you who are looking for an Internet host; Bluehost provides outstanding and highly reliable service for an insignificant sum of money. There isn’t […]
February 2, 2013 – 7:38 pm
Here’s a fine curmudgeonly rant about some of the lousy products we’ve had forced on us by our government’s shouldering aside of free markets in the name of saving the Planet. (My pet peeve: those bloody CF bulbs.) If, upon reading this, your inclination is to leave a comment about how wonderful it is once […]
February 1, 2013 – 12:53 pm
Ed Koch died today. He was a good mayor (not perfect, but who is?), a hell of a character, and a real New Yorker. We Gothamites will miss him. R.I.P., Ed. You did just fine.
January 31, 2013 – 12:13 am
This is fantastic: Japanese robots making German cars. Hat tip: William Gibson.
January 30, 2013 – 11:19 pm
Here’s a timely quote from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, in which he describes the same liability that so vexed the Founders: If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and oblige […]
January 28, 2013 – 6:13 pm
More on why women in combat units is a really bad idea. Will somebody remind me again why this is necessary? (HT- Laura Wood.)
January 28, 2013 – 12:38 pm
If you’re like me (of course you are!), you’ve been lying awake at night, asking yourself: “How the hell do South African dung beetles roll their balls in a straight line? Sure, polarized light from the Sun works fine during the day (duh!), but what about at night, when many of them do their best […]
January 28, 2013 – 12:11 pm
The latest global-warming story from the Research Council of Norway: things aren’t as bad, perhaps, as Mr. Gore, IPCC, and the rest of the AGW syndicate might have you believe. Excerpt: After Earth’s mean surface temperature climbed sharply through the 1990s, the increase has levelled off nearly completely at its 2000 level. Ocean warming also […]
January 27, 2013 – 1:15 pm
In case you haven’t been paying attention, a major Egyptian city has descended into anarchy and violent chaos. I’ve no time for commentary, but you can read about it here.
January 27, 2013 – 12:39 am
More from Tocqueville’s Democracy In America: There is one sort of patriotic attachment which principally arises from that instinctive, disinterested, and undefinable feeling which connects the affections of man with his birthplace. This natural fondness is united to a taste for ancient customs, and to a reverence for ancestral traditions of the past; those who […]
January 25, 2013 – 11:29 pm
Remember those “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board that President Obama went ahead and made last January, when the Senate wasn’t in recess? The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today ruled them unconstitutional. The Obama administration seems inclined to ignore the ruling, with Jay Carney today declaring that […]
January 25, 2013 – 4:27 pm
Here’s a refreshingly forthright article about abortion, in which the author, one Mary Elizabeth Williams, avoids altogether the impossibly difficult task of parsing exactly when life “begins”. She cuts the Gordian knot by conceding, arguendo, that life begins at conception, and then justifies abortion on the grounds that some lives are simply worth more than […]
January 25, 2013 – 12:27 am
I’ve just read through both volumes of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, which I had never read before in full. Tocqueville’s task throughout the book was to take the splintering-off of America from Europe as a controlled experiment on the grandest scale — and by identifying the independent variables, thereby to come to a […]
January 23, 2013 – 10:58 pm
How to make a rail gun. Here.
January 23, 2013 – 8:02 pm
If, like most folks, you’re a bit fuzzy on the historical context of that Algerian hostage-taking affair, here’s an excellent article.
January 23, 2013 – 5:27 pm
The Secretary of Defense today announced that women will now have a front-line role in combat. Here’s why this is such a bad idea that virtually every society everywhere in the world throughout history has used only males as warriors: – War is an existential conflict. Nations that lose wars stand to lose everything. – […]
January 22, 2013 – 11:25 pm
Can anyone explain to me why the United States is giving Egypt two hundred tanks and sixteen F-16s? The answer should not be that “we signed an agreement that we are now honoring”. We signed that agreement with Hosni Mubarak, a man we could rely on to maintain a stable peace with our principal ally […]
January 22, 2013 – 3:51 pm
Yuval Levin has written an excellent, and even-tempered, response to yesterday’s unapologetically collectivist speech by the President. Levin seizes on what I also thought was a key point, namely that Mr. Obama remains frankly and resolutely committed to the hollowing out of the essential layers of civil society that stand between the individual citizen and […]
January 22, 2013 – 1:58 pm
Speaking of yesterday’s inauguration, some of you might not have seen the hat that Justice Antonin Scalia wore. More here.
January 22, 2013 – 12:00 pm
Commenting on a recent item, one of our regular readers shared with us a fulsome effusion about yesterday’s reinstallation of our nation’s chief executive. Monday’s re-enactment of the actual swearing in, which took place on Sunday, was attended by the usual pomp and pageantry. It was attended also by a heterogeneous conglomerate of ethnic, cultural, […]
January 20, 2013 – 9:55 pm
In case any of you (perhaps those of you who have been held prisoner in a sub-basement by your evil stepfather for the past few decades, or you folks miraculously emerging from a persistent vegetative state) have any lingering doubt about the partisan alignment of certain media outlets, here’s the political director of CBS News […]
January 20, 2013 – 1:19 am
Champion sharpshooter Jessie Duff demonstrates a variety of semiautomatic firearms for Sean Hannity, making clear once again that the hysterical focus on so-called “assault rifles” is ignorant idiocy. (Look, for example, at the damage done by that 12-gauge.) As with all semiautomatics: one round per trigger pull.
January 20, 2013 – 1:01 am
Gates of Vienna is down again.