August 14, 2011 – 9:07 pm
Here’s the great voice-over artist Bob Kaliban in some recently discovered studio footage. Have a glimpse behind the scenes in the ad biz of old.
August 14, 2011 – 2:18 pm
The Tea Party has taken heavy fire lately: blamed by the MSM for our recent market volatility and S&P credit downgrade, derogated as “hostage-takers” and “terrorists” by prominent Democrats, while leading Tea Party candidates have been the subject of scary magazine articles and intentionally hideous cover photos. (All part of the rough-and-tumble of American politics, […]
August 13, 2011 – 10:40 pm
Ah, the Casuals at the Beachcomber. What could be better? Here’s a live feed, if you read this in the next little while. They’ve been playing this joint for 31 years.
August 13, 2011 – 11:57 am
Here’s some trenchant commentary on the UK’s oikophobic response to its wave of riots, from Brendan O’Neill at spiked.
August 13, 2011 – 11:09 am
Charles Murray saw it coming.
August 12, 2011 – 9:13 pm
I have a feeling this could really catch on…
August 11, 2011 – 4:18 pm
What’s the biggest problem facing America today? What’s the Obama administration’s top priority? Jobs, you say? The economy? Of course not, silly! It’s carbon.
August 11, 2011 – 3:17 pm
In the past day or so Dennis Mangan and others have mentioned this important new study confirming the heritability of intelligence. The results will hardly be a shock to denizens of the HBD blogosphere, or for that matter anyone who has been following the actual science of psychometrics, but are bound to raise a hackle […]
August 10, 2011 – 8:10 pm
As the long-awaited global apocalypse unfolds before our eyes, I’ve done what any responsible citizen with a proper sense of duty — or in fact, any sense at all — would do: run away. The lovely Nina and I have withdrawn to a well-provisioned bolt-hole in one of the nation’s easternmost extremities, and as long […]
In today’s Times there’s a harsh look at Standard and Poor’s ratings system, by Nate Silver. An excerpt: [T]he evidence from the past five years suggests that it may be worthwhile to adopt a contrarian investing strategy that specifically bets against S.&P.’s ratings. If you were trying to predict a country’s default risk today, based […]
Winston Churchill was, in my opinion, the greatest statesman and wartime leader of the 20th century, and America’s surest friend since Lafayette. In the aftermath of 9/11, the UK sent a bust of Churchill to the President, as token of enduring solidarity from our closest and most natural ally among all the nations of the […]
Awful news: 31 US troops, including 22 members of Seal Team Six, were killed in Afghanistan by a Taliban attack on a Chinook helicopter in Wardak province, Afghanistan. This adds deep, and deeply symbolic, sorrow to what is already a very grim weekend indeed here in America. They went with songs to the battle, they […]
If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be a drug mule who’s just swallowed five condoms full of heroin, ask someone who’s long in the market this weekend.
“In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak, but for that you must have long legs.” – Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
It’s been a fortnight now since Anders Behring Breivik’s havoc in Oslo. Cultural-conservative bloggers, aghast, have mostly tried to do three things in their subsequent commentrary: First and foremost, to condemn Breivik’s mass slaughter as irredeemably evil; Second, to dissociate themselves from any responsibility for it; Third, to attempt, within the context of the strongest […]
August 4, 2011 – 11:02 pm
Got home too late to write anything tonight — worked a long day at the office, then stopped off on the way home to grab a couple of slices with what was left of my 401(k).
A “tweet” from Iowahawk just now: Read this, then read this. O’Brien: You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged.
August 3, 2011 – 11:01 am
New blog on the way from our friend Kevin Kim. Here.
I had the TV on just now, and was watching Piers Morgan. He had on a fellow named Brad Thor, who apparently is a “terrorism expert” and author of “thriller”-style novels. They were talking about Norway, and about how much of a shock the Breivik rampage was to a nation that never saw it coming, […]
Well, we got our debt-limit increase. It’s a fantastic piece of legislation: it starts right off by “saving” almost a trillion dollars over the next ten years. (We’ll borrow that much in the next nine months, but hey: politics is the “art of the possible”.) Next, I think we should take care of the drunk-driving […]
August 1, 2011 – 10:19 pm
As advertised in this space a few weeks ago, Dr. John played at the Prospect Park Bandshell this past Saturday night (with go-go legend Chuck Brown and another very funky band called Red Baraat as openers). It was a fabulous show. Sorry you missed it. Dr. John is a walking encyclopedia of the American musical […]
Here’s Paul Krugman talking to Christine Amanpour this morning about spending cuts: “From the perspective of a rational person — in other words a progressive…” If you want to foreclose on civil discourse, to go beyond argument to mere polemic, to whip up bitter factional antipathies, to make the process of democratic government little more […]
John McCreary at NightWatch, always an indispensable resource for those who like to keep an ear to the ground, has offered some particularly pointed commentary on the Mideast over the past few days. First, Afghanistan. Our open-ended nation-building project having foundered on some sharp and immovable realities, we are leaving. But rather than make clear […]
Blogger Iowahawk tweets: Instead of car that gets 55 miles per gallon, how about a govt that gets 180 minutes per billion? I like that: minutes per billion as a measure of government bloat. Currently we get about 137 MPB.
I find myself imagining a gathering crowd watching the Capitol from some safe distance as the frenzy increases inside, with the two houses of Congress joined by the President in a furious battle-royal. The mighty building starts to quiver and shake. Clouds of steam begin to rise, and the walls start to glow — at […]
As the markets begin to totter in anticipation of the coming global collapse, investors are naturally wondering where to put their money. According to the latest data from NASA, I’d say definitely not the beach-umbrella or swimwear sectors. Maybe coal-mining and hockey equipment.
In this new climate of austerity, when we have to wean ourselves from so many lavish indulgences, it’s good to be reminded of life’s simple pleasures — like seeing someone give that Chris Hedges a good poke in the eye. Sam Harris does so here.
I had hoped to find some quiet time today for getting some thoughts written down about recent events (in particular the massacre in Oslo and what it means for the defense-of-the-West club that has been spotlighted from all angles in its aftermath), but it was not to be, and now, with a couple of very […]
I’ve been brooding and distracted, and trying to organize my thoughts for a serious post or two, but have hardly had a moment to myself all day, and so have nothing much to offer tonight. Except, of course, this appetizing illustration of sodium-ion channels in action, courtesy of my daughter Chloe.
A conversation with my father on the subject of the Armenian mystic Gurdjieff has led me to a re-reading of Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, which apparently G. had recommended to his study groups. (My father was a member of Gurdjieff’s London group after the war until G.’s death in 1949, and in fact went to […]
In a dark mood, I ran across this little shaft of light yesterday: When the sound and wholesome nature of man acts as an entirety, when he feels himself in the world as a grand, beautiful, worthy and worthwhile whole, when this harmonious comfort affords him a pure, untrammelled delight: then the universe, if it […]
According to this item, Internet-connectivity addiction is as powerful, and as difficult during withdrawal, as habituation to alcohol or tobacco. This is such palpable nonsense that I thought it warranted an immediate post. Perhaps I’ll mention it on Twitter, too. But first I’ll see what the reaction’s been around the blogosphere.
Dear Mayor Bloomberg: According to Scientific American, a meta-analysis of seven studies of the effects of salt consumption finds little or no health benefit from reduced-sodium diets. Would you mind calling off the mutaween?
It is too soon to write a post that comments in any analytical way on the Oslo massacre, though its ramifications will be profound, perhaps even to the point of changing the arc of European history. In its grotesque particulars, which are still coming to light, it is an act of such devastating horror, of […]
I’m talking about the weather, of course. This heat wave is as bad as it ever gets here in Gotham, and that’s saying something. Every year, as Spring latens, a creeping, hope-killing fear begins to stir in me, as I hear the brazen hinges of the Hell-mouth starting to swing open, and know that Satan, […]
Forgive me for asking, but what the hell are we doing aligning ourselves with these people? We’ve just given them the stamp of official US recognition, and granted them access to billions of dollars of frozen Libyan assets. Also: can someone explain to me why on Earth we should be giving one nickel of foreign […]
Looks like a little turf war brewing in Gaza. Story here.
I hardly know what to say about this one: Police arrest goat accused of armed robbery Hat tip to hbd chick.
One of the ways China has been eating our lunch lately is by sitting on the sidelines as we spend and bleed in God-forsaken Mideast ratholes, then snapping up the opportunities left behind as we stagger homeward with our pockets turned out. The latest example is here.
The investing website Seeking Alpha has published a transcript of CEO Steve Wynn’s remarks during the Q&A portion of Wynn Resorts’s Q2 conference call yesterday. A notable excerpt: Well, here’s our problem. There are a host of opportunities for expansion in Las Vegas, a host of opportunities to create tens of thousands of jobs in […]
With a hat-tip to our friend The Stiletto, we direct you to a pungent example of the machinery of justice at work. The case concerns an Iowa jailbird who, it was alleged, had thrown feces at one of the screws — a simple act of defiance that is fully conformant with traditional primate style, and […]
I’ve been reading Diarmaid MacCulloch’s outstanding history of Christianity (it’s enormously absorbing, and full of fascinating detail) and I’m currently immersed in the factional disputes of the fourth century A.D., when the biggest problem of the day was to work out a good account of the Trinity, and in particular the nature of Christ. It’s […]
With a hat-tip to commenter “Scott” over at Mangan’s, here’s a meaty interview, from King World News, with financial analyst Jim Rickards on the arcane topic of credit default swaps (and why they’re evil).
Well, here’s something I just found out the hard way: insects can get inside your laptop screen. I was sitting at the computer, saw a bug crawling across the screen, reached up to knock it away, and ended up squashing it. I went to wipe it off and realized it was behind the clear plastic […]
Four years ago I reported on a chicken-wing-eating competition I chanced upon at Grand Central Station. I had never seen professional gurgitators at work before; the best thing I can say about the experience was that it has helped me, in contemplating the great arc of civilization, to lower my expectations. Like other sports, though, […]
Sadly, the BULB Act, H.R. 2417 (see our earlier post here) died in the House the other day. Due to some procedural maneuvering the only way to bring it to the floor for a vote was in such a way as to require a two-thirds majority, and it fell slightly short. (This was in part […]
A week or so ago we posted a little poll, asking readers what they thought was the best album ever. Given the number of people who pass by here every day, I thought we’d see a lot more responses — it’s something that everyone has an opinion about, and unlike most topics, you won’t get […]