January 6, 2011 – 3:36 pm
I am not at all well today; a sudden onset of some stupefying chest-and-fever affliction has me slumped over my desk and wondering if I’ll make it home from the office. Back in harness tomorrow, I hope.
January 5, 2011 – 11:17 pm
We hear a lot about the inherent goodness, copious blessings, and paramount importance of diversity, but the obvious fact of history is that diverse populations frequently disaggregate, very often violently, into more homogeneous assortments. Shocking though it may be, there actually seems to be some truth to the obsolete and offensive notion that people, on […]
January 5, 2011 – 10:29 am
You may have been puzzled, as was I, to see the story the other day of the murder of John P. Wheeler, lawyer and former military officer, whose mortal remains were discarded in a garbage dump in Wilmington, Delaware. Now, various sources are alleging a link between the murder of Mr. Wheeler, an “inside” expert […]
January 4, 2011 – 9:33 pm
On Boxing Day, the NFL announced that it was cancelling the Eagles-Vikings game. The reason? It looked like it was going to snow. I couldn’t believe it. Tough men playing in brutal conditions is (or, I suppose I should say, was), an unshakable pillar of the football mystique. No matter how bad it gets, the […]
January 3, 2011 – 11:09 pm
In 2007 I wrote a post about Charles Fort, a dogged and eloquent eccentric who spent his life in the pursuit of what he called “damned facts” — eyewitness accounts of inexplicable phenomena that had been cast aside and swept into the incinerator by smug Victorian science. In four immensely engaging books — I can […]
January 3, 2011 – 12:16 am
When my well runs dry, as it has in the wearying final weeks of 2010, I want nothing more than to withdraw from the world, switch off the computer, cancel the newspaper, siphon off a vial of Caledonia’s tawny restorative, and read old books in silence and solitude. There are a few writers who always […]
January 1, 2011 – 4:13 pm
The Outer Cape in winter may be chilly, sparsely populated, and a little bleak (all of which suits me just fine), but one of the pleasures of being here in the cold months is the shell-fishing. In winter, when our highly prized oysters are at their peak of flavor and plumpness, the Wellfleet oyster-beds are […]
December 31, 2010 – 7:09 pm
So long, 2010. Usually I’m cheery and optimistic on New Year’s Eve, but this time around as the old year wanes I find myself in the grip of a tenacious bout of melancholy. I have a feeling 2011 is going to be, as they say, an “interesting” time. But never mind that! For tonight, let’s […]
December 26, 2010 – 6:24 pm
Today is balm for the weary spirit: the pre-Christmas frenzy is over, a powerful snowstorm raging outside has brought city life to a standstill, and after an exhausting spell of long hours at the office over the past couple of months, I have before me eight days of jealously hoarded time off. The pace may […]
December 25, 2010 – 1:03 am
To you all. Thanks as always for reading and commenting.
December 23, 2010 – 10:49 pm
With the publication of The Selfish Gene in 1976, Richard Dawkins raised a lively debate about which level of life’s organization is the right one for understanding natural selection. Previously the assumption had been that selection could only be understood to act upon discrete individuals, but Dawkins shook things up by suggesting that selection pressures […]
December 22, 2010 – 12:10 pm
There’s good news today from the frontiers of medical research, and just in time for Christmas. Story here.
December 22, 2010 – 12:26 am
The gifted writer Verlyn Klinkenborg offered a remembrance of Don Van Vliet on today’s New York Times editorial page. I liked it so much I’m reproducing it here (I don’t suppose he’ll mind). Summer of 1969. Parents away. A 50-foot audio cable runs from the stereo through a window across the porch to the lawn, […]
December 21, 2010 – 10:09 pm
Once again I’m passing the evening in my little cubicle, fettered to my oar. So for tonight, by way of sharing the gloom, we have two depressing items, sent our way by our indefatigable correspondent JK, about the effect on our military of America’s accelerating cultural untergang. See here, and here.
December 20, 2010 – 2:28 pm
Here’s a nice juxtaposition of news items from across the Big Ditch. The first, published in The Independent back on March 20th, 2000, glumly informed Brits that: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past. Zip forward a decade or so, and we have this: Coldest December since records began as temperatures plummet to […]
December 20, 2010 – 12:26 pm
My local news-radio station recently reported on a string of crimes here in Brooklyn in which cell-phones were being “robbed” by a man on a bicycle, his modus operandi being to ride up to distracted pedestrians and snatch the devices from their hands. This didn’t sit well with me; I’d have said it was the […]
December 19, 2010 – 11:22 pm
Well, Congress has gone ahead and repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I’ve already written about this topic, taking the position that the overriding concern here, by far, should be the effect of whatever policy is adopted on the effectiveness of the military. (I don’t claim to know what that effect will be ”” allowing gays […]
December 18, 2010 – 3:05 pm
You may not have heard about the latest offering from Google Labs, but it’s impressive, and addictive too. It’s a simple user interface that lets you graph the varying rate at which words and phrases have appeared in books over time. Enter your word or phrase, and see a graph. Bada-bing! Read about it here, […]
December 17, 2010 – 10:02 pm
Here’s some very sad news, just in from our California correspondent: the unique, the incomparable Captain Beefheart has succumbed to multiple sclerosis at the age of 69. Don Van Vliet was sui generis, and though he never rose to the dizzy pinnacle of fame, he was one of the most influential, most visionary, most jaggedly […]
December 16, 2010 – 4:53 pm
Well, here’s one scientific result whose robustness isn’t likely to decline with age: it appears that a certain level of corruption in law-enforcement actually represents a sort of societal “sweet spot”. Story here.
December 15, 2010 – 4:50 pm
Victor Davis Hanson, a native of California’s Central Valley, recently spent a few days exploring the area by bicycle and automobile to see how it had been affected by decades of political, economic, and demographic transformation. He summarizes his gloomy findings in a substantial essay at the National Review website. His article begins: The last […]
December 14, 2010 – 10:54 pm
Once again I am sitting at my office at 10:30 p.m., with no time for writing. So, for tonight: I imagine that those of you who prowl the reactionary blogosphere are familiar with the mysterious, magniloquent monarchist “Mencius Moldbug”, who blogs at Unqualified Reservations. I was surprised to find, the other day, a video of […]
December 14, 2010 – 12:33 am
In the December 13th edition of The New Yorker is a feature article by Jonah Lehrer titled The Truth Wears Off, about what’s known as the “Decline Effect” in experimental research. If you have a subscription to the New Yorker, you can read the article here. The magazine’s website does not allow selecting and pasting […]
December 12, 2010 – 11:45 pm
Here’s some holiday cheer, sent our way by the indefatigable JK.
December 12, 2010 – 11:00 pm
Here’s an item that’s been going around just now — sent to me independently by two readers shortly after I had noticed it myself in the science newsletters. Prior to the warmest part of the current interglacial period, large areas of what is now the western Persian Gulf were above sea level — constituting a […]
December 10, 2010 – 11:00 pm
Once again it’s almost eleven P.M., I’m still at work, and once again I have no time to write. (This is getting old fast, as am I.) I do have another interesting item for you, though. This time it’s about a little experiment, one that has picked out a curious difference between liberals and conservatives. […]
December 10, 2010 – 12:17 am
I worked far too late again tonight to do any writing — it’s after midnight, and I’ve only just got home from the office. But that doesn’t mean I have nothing for you, readers: have a look at the humbling, and exalting, life-story I read on the way home.
December 8, 2010 – 11:10 pm
I haven’t had much to say about politics for a few days, and don’t feel the need tonight to add to the chorus commenting on the tax deal, and on how adroitly the President managed to offend both the Right and his own liberal base at his petulant news conference yesterday. All I’ll say is […]
December 7, 2010 – 5:54 pm
I’m surprised to find that I’m still knocked out from yesterday’s periodontal surgery. I always forget the depressing effect that surgery has on the bodily system as a whole — surprisingly so, in this case, because as surgeries go, this was nothing: a couple of hours in the chair, a molar implant in the right […]
December 6, 2010 – 8:39 pm
I’m recovering (with the help of Scotland’s amber restorative) from a weakening bout of periodontal surgery (my thanks as always, though to Dr. Louis Franzetti, who is the Jascha Heifetz of prosthodontics), and so am in no mood to write. Go then, to Mangan’s, and read an interesting thread on the regrets of the dying. […]
December 6, 2010 – 2:33 pm
While we’re on the subject of dramatic images of nature, here’s a fine shot of an enormous magnetic filament twisting across the surface of the Sun. Its length is about 55 Earth diameters. Have a look.
December 6, 2010 – 12:36 am
In the old days of recording, we did our work in magnificent studios, lavishly equipped with the finest consoles, microphones and signal-processing equipment, and we preserved our work on magnetic tape. But now that the digital revolution has battered the record business to its knees and ground most of the old recording studios into dust […]
December 3, 2010 – 2:21 pm
Here’s an absolutely amazing image, taken by Montana photographer Sean Heavey. If you liked that one, there are more here, and you can order prints at Mr. Heavey’s website, here.
December 3, 2010 – 10:30 am
The “big news” from yesterday, about a new form of arsenic-based life found in Mono Lake, seems, from what I’ve read today, to have been a bit exaggerated. The bacterium in question was taken from an arsenic-rich environment — one to which it had presumably adapted by developing a tolerance for the stuff — and […]
December 2, 2010 – 1:41 pm
This could be very big news: the discovery of a new life-form, in California’s Mono Lake, with a significant difference in its most basic biochemistry. (Having turned up in California, chances are it will soon be demanding in-state tuition rates.) Story here.
November 30, 2010 – 4:23 pm
Writing in Slate, Christopher Hitchens rails at the foolish and humiliating measures we have imposed on ourselves in our bumbling, ill-guided quest for airline security. We read: When the best that the children of a revolution can do for the defense of their inalienable protection against unwarranted search and seizure is to issue the pathetic […]
November 30, 2010 – 12:35 am
Have you read Julian Jaynes’s provocative 1977 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind? In it the author, a Princeton psychologist, argued that human self-consciousness — the real McCoy, the “I am, and I am aware that I am” reflective consciousness that is, for us, the essence of being human, […]
November 28, 2010 – 10:43 pm
In a recent editorial about the airport-security brouhaha, the Times reiterates the usual liberal cant as regards profiling. We read: Seeing conservative Republicans accuse the Obama administration of trying too hard to protect America from terrorists is a remarkable spectacle of contortion. But many of them are making a far more pernicious point. They want […]
November 26, 2010 – 5:07 pm
A little while back we posted an item about the purpose of the sophisticated “Stuxnet” computer virus, which appears to have been aimed at Iran’s nuclear program. Everybody agrees it was one hell of a piece of work. Now, here’s an update on how it did what it did. This is some serious programming, folks. […]
November 25, 2010 – 11:33 am
To all. And my thanks to you, readers.
November 23, 2010 – 8:18 pm
I’m working late again tonight, and haven’t had the time to write anything interesting, or to work on any of the longer posts I’ve been gestating. So here’s some truly shameless filler.
November 22, 2010 – 2:43 pm
Because of our reluctance to take a more commonsense approach to airport screening, fliers now have two choices: groping of their privates by the TSA, or exposure to full-body X-ray scanners that not only amount to a visual strip-search, but also subject passengers (especially those who fly often) to worrisome levels of radiation. We have […]
November 21, 2010 – 10:26 pm
We’re back from our brief getaway, but after the long drive home I’m too pooped to post. So for tonight, here’s a heartening vision of humanity’s future: a legion of adoring fans lifted to ecstasy by a singing hologram in the form of a pubescent, pigtailed puttana.
November 20, 2010 – 2:51 pm
The lovely Nina and I are recuperating in the Outer Cape for the weekend, so there’ll be none of the usual long-winded bloviation here for now. Instead, here’s an enjoyable diversion, featuring an extraordinary young Scotsman and some lovely footage of my ancestral homeland.
November 19, 2010 – 2:17 pm
Yesterday’s paper brought more sad news: the death of American chess grandmaster Larry Evans. Mr. Evans, though never quite in the uppermost echelon of world-championship candidates, was nevertheless among the strongest players in the world for decades, and was a frequent U.S. champion. He was also a prolific and beloved author, columnist, and analyst; I […]
November 17, 2010 – 10:14 pm
Astronomy lost one of its most luminous stars on Saturday with the death of Allan Sandage, protégé of Edwin Hubble, and one of the greatest observers of all time. From Dennis Overbye’s obituary in the Times: Over more than six decades, Dr. Sandage was like one of those giant galaxies that sit at the center […]
November 16, 2010 – 8:15 pm
President Obama published a children’s book today, called Of Thee I Sing. In the book, which takes the form of a “tender, beautiful letter to his daughters”, he praises various figures from American history. We note in passing that among the “great Americans” profiled is Sitting Bull, who is best known for having led a […]
November 16, 2010 – 6:15 pm
It appears that the linked video in our recent post Is This A Great Civilization, Or What? wasn’t working for some readers. I’ve since found it on YouTube, and updated the link.
November 15, 2010 – 4:46 pm
Readers may recall the “Stuxnet” computer virus that appeared in the news a few months ago. It was widely assumed that the malware was aimed, probably by Israel, at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant. The code has now been very thoroughly analyzed, and it seems it had a tightly focused purpose: to sabotage uranium-refinement centrifuges by […]
November 14, 2010 – 7:06 pm
OK, readers, here it is, all in one: what we’re fighting for, and why we’ll win. Have a look. If this isn’t the zenith of human endeavor, I don’t know what is. (Yet another hat-tip to the indefatigable JK.)