February 7, 2011 – 11:57 pm
In the comment thread of our previous post, we’ve been looking at Sam Harris’s claim that there can be a prescriptive natural science of human morality, one that uncovers objective normative truths. This would rebut, it seems, the idea that there are no “oughts” in nature. People do want there to be absolute moral truths, […]
February 6, 2011 – 6:06 pm
A while back I noted that Sam Harris has a new book out (The Moral Landscape), in which he argues that it is possible to develop an objective, entirely naturalistic science of human morality that would be not just descriptive, but prescriptive as well. From a philosophical perspective this is a hugely audacious assertion, because […]
February 6, 2011 – 4:46 pm
While I was in our local upscale grocery-market today, an amazing little vegetable caught my eye. It was something called “Romanesco” broccoli (Brassica romanesco, as it turns out), and it is one of the most beautiful natural fractals I’ve ever seen. Smitten, I bought one, and when I got it home I snapped a couple […]
February 4, 2011 – 9:58 pm
What’s your favorite color? Mine are the darker blues and greens; best of all are the deep and aqueous tones in between. The blues and greens are horizontal, and patient, and extended in time, like the sea and the sky and forest; the reds and yellows and oranges are vertical, and call us to the […]
February 3, 2011 – 4:50 pm
I’m chastened; things are worse than I thought. It seems Paul Krugman, Sherrif Dupnik, et al. were right after all: there really is a lot of racist, violent, over-the-top, “eliminationist” rhetoric out there. At a political rally deep in the Southwest, a cameraman has captured on video chilling footage of this vitriolic, inflammatory hate-speech: people […]
February 3, 2011 – 11:00 am
Amongst all the turmoil in the Mideast, some good news: Lars Hedegaard has been acquitted — on a technicality, but we’ll take it. He published this statement at the website of the International Free Press Society: As my ancient forefathers, the Vikings, would have said: It is always good to fight. It is better to […]
February 2, 2011 – 9:45 pm
Oh my. Here’s the Tera Patrick of fiscal conservatism, steaming up the lens again. Republicans concerned about the Presidential field will want to watch this in private.
February 1, 2011 – 10:59 pm
Allan Sherman, Dean Martin, and Vic Damone. A previous age of the world.
February 1, 2011 – 5:33 pm
A hat tip to Lawrence Auster for bringing to our attention an excellent article by Caroline Glick on the strange-bedfellow convergence of rose-bespectacled, democracy-exporting conservatives and West-loathing, Howard-Zinn-style leftists in cheering on the uprising in Egypt. Both viewpoints, argues Ms. Glick, are animated by narcissism about the West, though of very different kinds: the democracy-evangelists […]
February 1, 2011 – 2:33 pm
Now King Abdullah of Jordan, stalling for time while he makes his arrangements, has dismissed his cabinet. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Mubarak no longer has the support of the Egyptian Army, and is presumably wrapping up the last of his official duties: emptying the vaults of the national treasury into a waiting aircraft.
February 1, 2011 – 1:15 am
Things are just so terribly unfair, so pitilessly unequal in this awful society that some days it’s all I can do not to retire to the attic with a notepad and a length of stout rope. Today’s Times brings to our attention yet another clamant injustice: egregious gender inequality at Wikipedia, where it turns out […]
January 31, 2011 – 5:33 pm
Federal judge Roger Vinson, of the Northern District of Florida. has ruled that the entire “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, a.k.a. Obamacare, is unconstitutional. I’ve only just had a quick look at the ruling, but it appears that the reasoning goes like this: The individual mandate — the part of the law that compels […]
January 31, 2011 – 10:19 am
I’ve just been told that Pakistan has suddenly shut off electronic communications. That would not be a good sign, especially in light of this. For confirmation, so far all I’ve found is this item, which suggests that the issue is more specific — though I’d be inclined to think that’s just smoke. Oh, and there’s […]
January 29, 2011 – 11:53 pm
Over the transom comes a link to an analysis of the Egyptian situation by foreign-policy analyst Barry Rubin. Some salient excerpts: There is no good policy for the United States regarding the uprising in Egypt. …There is no organized moderate group in Egypt. Even the most important past such organization, the Kifaya movement, has already […]
January 28, 2011 – 10:50 pm
Here’s something I wonder about: what is this mayhem in the Middle East going to do to the world’s economic markets? In particular, if trouble breaks out between Israel and Iran over Israel’s tightening encirclement, and the Strait of Hormuz — through which a very significant portion of the world’s seaborne oil must pass — […]
January 28, 2011 – 9:48 pm
For some reason I had comments disabled on today’s Egypt post. They’re on again now, if anyone has anything to add.
January 28, 2011 – 1:37 pm
Good stuff at Spaceweather.com today: video of gigantic eruptions on opposite sides of the Sun, and a startling photo of a rare atmospheric phenomenon. Go have a look.
January 28, 2011 – 12:13 pm
The pot is aboil all over the Mideast and the Maghreb; today the world’s attention is focused on Egypt, where the long reign of Hosni Mubarak seems to be coming to an end. (Mubarak’s son, his heir apparent, has apparently already fled.) The indispensable NightWatch offers a crisp analysis of why events like these can […]
January 27, 2011 – 12:46 pm
Multiple sources (here’s one) report that the government in Iraq is moving forward with a deal to buy 18 F-16 fighter jets from the US. What’s not being mentioned (except, as far as I can tell, by the anonymous author of Nightwatch), is that given the extent of Iran’s influence on the al-Maliki government, we […]
January 26, 2011 – 3:03 pm
Here’s another item from today’s Science Daily, for you math weenies out there (Derb, are you reading this?): a historic breakthrough in the theory of partitions.
January 26, 2011 – 11:47 am
There’s an interesting item in today’s Science Daily: a paper by University of Wyoming researcher Qin Zhu et al., suggests that the human size-weight illusion — which makes us think, if holding two objects of equal weight, that the larger one actually weighs less — is an evolved adaptation that helped us find objects of […]
January 25, 2011 – 12:02 pm
In our previous post we republished the statement before his inquisitors of Lars Hedegaard, the president of the International Free Press Society, who stands trial, in a supposedly free nation of northern Europe, for the crime of uttering a forbidden opinion in his own home. You would think that the leading newspapers of the capital […]
January 25, 2011 – 11:51 am
By now you probably know that the high-flying New York Jets, en route to Dallas, were brought down Sunday night by a severe patch of turbulence over Pittsburgh — the result, perhaps, of an expanding pocket of hot air that had lingered in the team’s vicinity for several weeks. In case you missed the game, […]
January 24, 2011 – 11:18 pm
The show trial of Lars Hedegaard, the president of the International Free Press Society, took place today in Copenhagen. He stands accused, for remarks he made in a privately taped interview, of violating a Danish law that allows a prosecutor to bring criminal charges against anyone deemed to have spoken words that insult or degrade […]
January 24, 2011 – 2:35 pm
In the wake of events in Tunisia, things are heating up all over the Mideast and the Maghreb. In particular, events are coming to a head in Lebanon and Yemen. From the indispensable Nightwatch: Yemen: Ripple Effects from Tunisia. On Saturday, thousands of Yemenis demonstrated to demand an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year […]
January 24, 2011 – 1:12 pm
At last week’s state dinner for Hu Jintao, the pianist Lang Lang, who has a regular gig at the White House these days, provided some entertainment for the guest of honor. What did he play? Learn more here.
January 23, 2011 – 10:33 pm
We note with sadness the passing of TV fitness coach Jack LaLanne, who has died at his California home at the age of 96. It’s a bit of a jolt to realize the man was mortal. Mr. LaLanne taught generations of Americans the value of exercise; my mother and I used to follow along with […]
January 21, 2011 – 6:08 pm
From Foreign Policy, by way of the indefatigable JK.
January 21, 2011 – 5:47 pm
“Yellowstone Has Bulged as Magma Pocket Swells” — headline, National Geographic, January 19
January 21, 2011 – 5:42 pm
“One-third of Zimbabwe registered voters are dead” — headline, TheStar.com, January 21
January 21, 2011 – 1:17 pm
In today’s New York Times we learn that President Obama, to his credit, recently made clear to President Hu Jintao that if China would not do more to contain North Korea, the USA would have no choice but to increase its military presence in the region. China has, in response, made a few helpful gestures. […]
January 20, 2011 – 11:36 pm
I haven’t written much about philosophy of mind lately, which used to be a frequent topic around here. The reason, mostly, is that the subject is so intractable, and progress so difficult, that I just got tired of writing about it. But these ancient questions still fascinate me, and I still return to them now […]
January 20, 2011 – 11:33 pm
It appears that today we published our 2000th post. If I had any sense of decency or proportion that would surely suffice; needless to say, however, I’ll keep on shoveling.
January 20, 2011 – 2:10 pm
According to “a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau data conducted exclusively for Reuters by researchers at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston”, it appears that since the beginning of the current recession more than a million U.S. jobs have been taken by recent immigrants, an […]
January 19, 2011 – 5:41 pm
Well, I don’t know about you (and I can’t speak for the rest of my conservative friends in the Reichstag), but I’m certainly enjoying this new era of civility. May it last a thousand years!
January 19, 2011 – 2:40 pm
Today President Obama welcomes Hu Jintao, the president of China. Mr. Hu will be feted with pomp and circumstance, including the highest honor that official American hospitality can provide: a state dinner at the White House. In other words, today the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize is entertaining, with full state honors, the […]
January 18, 2011 – 7:14 pm
I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more about this.
January 18, 2011 – 5:15 pm
Here’s a scoop, as dispatched by our monocular Bay Area correspondent: Thousands of Sports Fans Drunk After Football, Baseball Games I understand this is the cover story for the forthcoming issue of DUH! magazine, but you heard it here first.
January 18, 2011 – 12:15 pm
Today’s lead item: it appears that Candy Dynamics, of Indianapolis, IN, acting out of “an abundance of caution”, has decided to issue a voluntary recall of an acidulous confection called Toxic Waste Nuclear Sludge Chew Bars, which they import from Pakistan. Apparently the stuff isn’t good for you. More here.
January 17, 2011 – 10:33 am
I like it for watching “Nictitate at Nite”. Here.
January 16, 2011 – 11:37 pm
It’s getting late, and having spent the day cleaning out a spare room, editing MIDI drum parts on Pro Tools, and watching the stupendous upset of Tom Brady and the Patriots by our hometown team, I have to dig into the old grab-bag for tonight’s post. Here are a few diverting links: First, a bug […]
January 14, 2011 – 3:44 pm
For those of you who haven’t heard, your astrological sign may not be what you thought it was. Here are the correct assignments, valid until further notice. Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16 Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11 Pisces: March 11-April 18 Aries: April 18-May 13 Taurus: May 13-June 21 Gemini: June 21-July 20 Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10 […]
January 13, 2011 – 10:08 pm
OK, time to change the subject. It’s been a terrible few days, and everybody’s frazzled and cranky. (Why, if I’m not careful, I might even lose my cool.) We’ve had quite enough politics around here to last us for at least a day or two, I think. So, lets see here… (rummaging around on desk) […]
January 11, 2011 – 11:22 pm
I very much wanted to change the subject, to write about something else tonight. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the tension between Left and Right in this country is moving far beyond mere matters of policy — and as I wrote in a comment at another website today, the level of animosity now […]
January 10, 2011 – 10:47 am
The Arizona shootings have brought about a secondary crisis: massive overuse of the word “vitriol”. (The word appeared in nearly every letter published on the subject in today’s Times.) As a public service, then, and in a heartfelt spirit of bipartisanship, here are some substitutes that writers on the Left can use when describing the […]
January 9, 2011 – 7:26 pm
Given all the bickering going on between Left and Right, it seems apt to mention an item in today’s Science Daily newsletter: a story about new results in the study of biological molecular chirality, something I’ve been curious about for a while. A brief explanatory preface: Molecules with identical chemical structure can come in mirror-image […]
January 8, 2011 – 6:47 pm
As mentioned in the post just below, the person in custody in the Tucson shootings is a young white male named Jared Lee Loughner. Although the Left has already begun spitting venom at conservatives in general and the Tea Party in particular (they are going to regret it, I think; I am reminded of when […]
January 8, 2011 – 2:55 pm
There is horrible news breaking from Tucson, where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat and supporter of “immigration reform” has apparently been assassinated in a mass shooting. (As of 3:13 EST it is still not certain that she has died, though several news agencies are reporting that she was killed.) Not only is this a despicable […]
January 7, 2011 – 4:52 pm
Well, whatever it was that hit me yesterday, I hope I never get it again. I left my Midtown office just after publishing yesterday’s post, shuffled the third of a mile to the F train at a pace roughly equal to that of an advancing glacier, made a supreme effort to get back up to […]