From longshoreman Eric Hoffer, November 29th, 1974: I cannot see myself living in a socialist society. My passion is to be left alone and only a capitalist society does so. Capitalism is ideally equipped for mastering things but awkward in mastering men. It hugs the assumption that people will perform tolerably well when left to […]
I rail often about our swaggering, authoritarian mayor, Michael Bloomberg. (He gave me yet another reason to do so, just last night — and for a really tangy rant about Hizzonner, check out the inimitable Fran Lebowitz, here.) One issue I think he’s clearly on the right side of, though, is the battle over the […]
In the wake of the Aurora massacre, the usual groups are saying the usual things. Some of these things are flamboyantly stupid. For example, E.J. Dionne, complaining that dialogue about gun laws is “prevented” in America, wrote that ” where a gun massacre is concerned … an absolute and total gag rule is imposed on […]
Here’s an update on the situation in Syria, from John McCreary’s latest NightWatch newsletter: Opposition fighters attacked the provincial police headquarters in the Qanawat district of old Damascus, news services reported on the 19th . Gunfire was intense for an hour, a Qanawat resident said. Rebels also claim to have attacked and seized three border […]
By now you’ve heard about the mass murder in Colorado. Among those killed was a sports writer by the name of Jessica Redfield, who last night tweeted: Of course we’re seeing Dark Knight. Redheaded Texan spitfire, people should never argue with me.Maybe I should get in on those NHL talks… Ms. Redfield published a blog […]
Attention stoners: if pot ever becomes legal, you’re going to have more disposable cash. Learn more here.
Insurgency being centripetal, the lethal attack against the Assad family in Damascus marks a strategic tipping point in Syria. Assad is now said to have left Damascus for Latakia. No cheering, please. There is no good outcome here, no matter what happens.
There’s been quite a ruction over Mr. Obama’s “you didn’t build that” remark. Are you one of the legions of his supporters who insist that his words were twisted out of context? Fine, then. Here’s Jim Geraghty responding, point, by point, to the rest of that horrifying, deeply revealing speech.
One thing connects to another in unexpected ways. Last Friday I had lunch with a well-known conservative blogger. We didn’t meet to talk about politics, though: I had noticed, in some of this writer’s posts, references to the “Fourth Way” teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff and his pupil, P.D. Ouspensky — and having both a personal […]
OK, here’s something completely uncontroversial and apolitical: some beautiful images from a National Geographic photo contest. And don’t miss these.
Took ’em down. Too overwrought. Back in a little while.
I live not far from Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery (which, as mentioned in this breezy and highly informative little post from 2006, contains Brooklyn’s highest point, Battle Hill). It’s a beautiful cemetery, and a lot of notable folks are buried there. Who, exactly? Well, I’ve just found a list, courtesy of the fantastic website FindAGrave.com. Have […]
It’s just too warm and humid to write. So here’s an article, in two parts, about the way we parse the world, and why. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.
This is pure gold: a dance montage featuring the heartbreakingly lovely Rita Hayworth, set to a familiar soundtrack. How vulgar our modern “culture” seems in comparison to the artistry, elegance, and allure on display here. It would have been even better with the original music, but what a treat nevertheless. Have a look.
If you’re into “vintage” erotica, it’ll be hard to top this.
With a hat tip to VFR, here’s Charles Krauthammer on the “Arab Spring”: Many Westerners naÁ¯vely believed the future belonged to the hip, secular, tweeting kids of Tahrir Square. Well there were, after all (ahem!), some observers here in the West who saw things a bit more clearly. Alas, this sliver of Westernization was no […]
From Letters of Note: an exchange between Isaac Asimov and Gene Roddenberry that began when Asimov wrote an item for TV Guide criticizing inaccuracies in televised science fiction. The first letter in the series, from Roddenberry to Asimov, contained the following: In the specific comment you made about Star Trek, the mysterious cloud being “one-half […]
I don’t go to my employer’s Manhattan office much anymore; mostly I work from home, to save the time and inconvenience of riding the subway from Brooklyn to Midtown. I did go in today, though, for a lunch meeting with some other members of our software-development team. It’s July, and so there is plenty of […]
You’ve no doubt heard about the runaway erotic bestseller 50 Shades of Grey. If you’ve been wondering what all the fuss is about, here’s a steamy excerpt, as read by a noted celebrity.
From Big Think, a glimpse at the ongoing Graduate Studies session at Singularity U.
Here are some further thoughts on the Corpus Christi police-standards issue that was the subject of our previous post. A reasonable response might be: Malcolm, you grumpy old fossil: can’t you see the obvious benefits of putting women on the police force? Women, who handle social interactions and conflict very differently from the “rough men” […]
Here’s a brief transcript from Radio Derb’s most recent podcast: If you thought the federal Department of Justice could not get any crazier, try this. The Police Department of the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, has fitness standards for people who want to be police officers. Applicants must complete a 300-meter run, a 1½ mile […]
Britain’s isolation by salt water throughout historical time had a lot to do with its stability and rise to global power (though of course there is more to a nation’s destiny than geography). It wasn’t always that way, though. Learn more here.
John Stossel gives President Obama’s ACA victory speech a brisk fisking, here.
From this morning’s parade here in Wellfleet: As you can see, not much changes around here.
Here’s something really wonderful, from our friend Horace Jeffery Hodges. Go and enjoy.
Here’s one sent our way by our reader “The Big Henry”: the history of rock music in 100 guitar riffs. One man, one Strat, one take.
For tonight, an interesting item from the frontier of advancing technology. One of the the most promising innovations we discussed and saw demonstrated at Singularity University back in April was 3-D printing, in which a movable printer head builds up solid objects by depositing one very thin layer at a time. The extraordinary thing about […]
There’s an ad on my local news-radio station that’s been playing for years. It’s for one of those personal-injury law-firms. Now I have nothing against such firms, and they surely serve a just and necessary purpose in bringing succor to those wrongfully harmed. But there’s one line in this commercial that jumps out at me […]
Here’s more on the ACA ruling, from Daniel Foster at NRO. From Kennedy’s dissent, joined by Scalia, Alito, and Thomas (but not Roberts!): “In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety.’
The blogger Poor Richard makes an interesting point about the Obamacare ruling, here.
Well, SCOTUS made its big ruling today, and the key point of contention — the individual mandate — was upheld. I haven’t read the opinions yet, but it seems the IM was ruled not to be permissible under the Commerce Clause, which was what pretty much everyone thought the decision would hinge on, but was […]
We can’t seem to do anything at all any more. Here are two posts about that: one from Walter Russell Mead, the other from Dennis Mangan. Democracy works well enough for a while, I suppose, while a nation is young and virile enough to value opportunity over security, and while its people can muster up […]
Here’s an interesting item from the New England Journal of Medicine on the “changing task of medicine”. It looks back at NEJM’s pages from a century ago and more to see how both the technical and social aspects of medicine have changed. (The article cites hopeful remarks, for example, about how eugenics would someday supersede […]
That the mainstream media list hard to port is so obvious to anyone who doesn’t share their reference frame that it’s hardly worth mentioning — or at least it would be so if everyone on the left didn’t deny it so fatiguingly and disingenuously at every opportunity. With that in mind, here’s a refreshing post […]
The other day I was reading up on Phlebopus marginatus, the Salmon gum mushroom of Western Australia, and noticed that it is “generally recorded as of unknown edibility”. I was surprised to see that — I mean, is the thing edible, or not? — until I thought about it and realized just what’s involved in […]
Call me crazy, but I think this is one rakish alligator.
Living is walking backwards. All we can see is where we’ve already been.
Here’s Arthur Miller, remembering the sweltering New York of his youth. (I doubt I would have survived it.)
Scientist James Lovelock, best known for his development (with Lynn Margulis) of the “Gaia hypothesis” and for his ardent advocacy of radical measures to prevent global warming, surprised us all a little while back when he told MSNBC that in retrospect he thought he had been too “alarmist” about climate change. (It is no small […]
Working late tonight, with much to catch up on — so for now, just an odd little item about the physics of Slinkies.
We’re back, after a splendid trip. Visiting Venice and Florence reminds one just how tall the West’s candle once stood, and on returning home it’s hard not to dwell on how very low it has burned. But that’s just the way of the world, I suppose. Did I miss anything? I have a lot of […]
We’ll likely be off the air until sometime around June 21st: the lovely Nina and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary with a little trip to Italy (Venice and Florence). We’ll have scant access to email and the Internet — and it will be nice to take a little break from all that is […]
I’ve lived in the Northeast all my life. I like it here. I like the landscape, the culture, and the dramatic cycle of the four seasons (my favorite being autumn). I have no inclination to live anywhere else, and will doubtless make my home here for the rest of my life (unless some combination of […]
From the website “prosthetic knowledge” comes this cross-section of a marram-grass leaf:
Here’s a nifty invention, at least four years in the making. Wonder how long the deregulating will take?
Today’s Times reported that it is now possible to read almost all of a fetus’s genome simply by taking blood from the mother and saliva from the father. Lurking behind the headlines is an idea, once heartily embraced by Progressive intellectuals: eugenics. Thanks to certain mid-20th-century events, eugenics nowadays is generally thought of as entirely […]