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Well, Congress has gone ahead and repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.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.)
November 14, 2010 – 3:13 pm
Writing in The Guardian, journalist Andrew Anthony has just published a recent interview with Christopher Hitchens — who though ravaged by cancer refuses to go gentle, and whose words still fork some lightning. An excerpt: “I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance […]
November 12, 2010 – 3:42 pm
The importance of mindfulness — the mastery of one’s attention, and the practiced ability to maintain conscious awareness of our subjective experience in the present moment — is a major principle of Buddhism, Sufism, the Gurdjieff work, and, I suspect, just about every esoteric system of inner development. (I’ve mentioned it before, for example here […]
November 11, 2010 – 10:46 pm
Here in New York City, we stand in a lot of lines. The customary procedure — at, say, one of our archetypal delis, during lunch hour — has always been for the person behind the counter to holler “NEXT!!!” when it’s time for the queue to shuffle forward. It’s blunt, simple, and gets right to […]
November 9, 2010 – 10:15 pm
In today’s science news, a huge pair of melon-shaped objects has the boffins goggling in amazement. “They’re big,’ said Doug Finkbeiner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who has been studying them intently. “Wow,” said Princeton’s David Spergel. Story here.
November 8, 2010 – 11:19 pm
Among the myriad wavelets in last week’s conservative electoral tsunami was a measure passed in Oklahoma banning the application of sharia, or Islamic law, in that state. Sharia, you say? In Oklahoma?? Fair enough. But the referendum was inspired, no doubt, by a look around at other theoretically secular Western polities such as England, in […]
November 7, 2010 – 10:17 pm
I’ve twice mentioned my mother-in-law, Lily Renée Phillips, in these pages — first here, a few years back, and then again just a few months ago, when an article about her appeared in Newsweek. Now, fittingly, she has herself appeared in a panel of a syndicated comic strip, which was found and sent our way […]
November 6, 2010 – 8:52 pm
Here’s Leon Russell, in a clip from the old TV show Shindig! I was eight years old.
November 5, 2010 – 10:17 pm
Charles Krauthammer has written a good piece on the recent election. In particular he makes clear that this is very definitely not Republican Beatlemania: This is not, however, a rejection of Democrats as a party. The center-left party as represented by Bill Clinton remains competitive in every cycle. (Which is why he was the most […]
November 4, 2010 – 10:35 pm
You may not have visited the popular left-wing website The Daily Kos for while; perhaps you have formed the opinion that it was nothing more than a soapbox for unhinged, spittle-flecked, anti-establishment moonbats. If so, you will be pleasantly surprised to read this gracious post, published by ethnic bridge-builder Tim Wise on the occasion of […]
November 3, 2010 – 8:21 pm
“To err is human.” When it comes to what we do, there’s usually plenty of room for improvement. But when it comes to what we are, it turns out that isn’t always the case. Natalie Angier explains.
November 2, 2010 – 9:33 pm
Ah, Election Night at last! The wigs are accumulating on the green even as I write. It will be some time before the casualty count is tallied, however — so for tonight, we need a little diversion, with an appropriately conservative theme. I’ve found just the thing, from the fertile pen of John Derbyshire, who, […]
November 1, 2010 – 5:37 pm
We’ve been hearing an awful lot during this election cycle about our aloof “elites” (a demographic segment that generally overlaps what Scott Rasmussen defines as “the political class”). Members of the group in question understandably bristle at the characterization, preferring to imagine that they are the salt of the earth. (“Elite? Moi??”) In case you […]
October 31, 2010 – 11:51 pm
Well, here’s a surprising development, brought to our attention by the indefatigable JK: in this video clip, we see liberal stalwart Bill Maher breaking ranks with party orthodoxy, and expressing public concern about the usurpation of Western culture by Islam. This is not actually an inconsistent position for Mr. Maher, whose scorn for religion he […]
October 29, 2010 – 11:13 am
Listening to Gotham’s news-radio station this morning as I performed my ablutions, I heard the following announcement in the business segment: “Consumers are cutting back this holiday season, but not as much as in recent years.” In other words, consumers are spending more this year than last year. How is that “cutting back”? Who writes […]
October 29, 2010 – 9:42 am
How utterly gormless has our moribund liberal Western culture become in its prostration before its nemesis? A story making the rounds today should give you some idea. Here.